From Reuters...fyi.
-DDeBar


12:21 AM ET 11/06/97

Striking French truckers, employers make progress


         (Updates with negotiators narrowing differences)
            By Henri-Pierre Andre
            PARIS, Nov 6 (Reuters) - French truckers and their employers
narrowed differences in more than 13 hours of overnight talks
aimed at ending a bitter and crippling strike that rolled into
its fifth day, union sources said on Thursday.
            The negotiations, which began at 4 p.m. (1500 GMT) on
Wednesday, were continuing. Negotiators were focusing on one of
the major sticking points, the size and timing of bonuses, the
sources said.
            Another obstacle was how ambulance drivers were to be
treated in an eventual accord on pay and working conditions,
they added.
            France Info radio reported that the negotiators bargaining
behind closed doors at the Transport Ministry just outside Paris
had tentatively settled two contentious points, agreeing on an
immediate six percent pay increase and on a guaranteed monthly
salary.
            Truckers have complained that they often put in long days on
the road without getting fully paid for them.
            The strike has snarled road traffic, brought freight
transport to a standstill and triggered spot shortages of fuel
and perishable foods but has not led to any widespread
paralysis.
            Finance Minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn said the strike had
not yet had an important economic effect.
            The strike has also angered France's European Union partners
whose truckers have been blocked from delivering goods, both
inside France and to neighbouring countries.
             At just after 4.30 a.m. (0330 GMT), strikers were
maintaining barricades across key roads at 159 different sites,
traffic officials said. That was down from a peak of 174 on
Wednesday afternoon.
            Normandy, the Marseille area and the Rhone Valley were the
worst hit.
            The strikers want higher pay and better working conditions.
They accuse company owners of failing to live up to agreements
reached after a 12-day strike a year ago.
            The truckers had raised the stakes on Wednesday,  blocking
off a key Paris ring road for about 90 minutes in their first
incursion into the capital since the labour dispute began on
Sunday.
            The barricade across the Peripherique motorway at the start
of the evening rush hour triggered massive traffic jams before
it was lifted when police threatened to intervene.
            Violence erupted at one of the strikers' barricades early on
Wednesday. A dozen masked men charged a strikers' roadblock near
Marseille, beating three truckers with iron bars and forcing a
passage through for about 12 French refrigerator trucks.
            One striker was rushed to hospital with serious head
injuries from the attack.
            ``If such attacks grow in number there could be several
weeks of strikes, so we are making a call for reason. Let's not
poison things,'' said Joel Le Coq of the CFDT union.
            Six people were in custody in connection with the attack --
the head of a local refrigerated food transport firm and five
security guards.
            An estimated 350,000 French truckers are involved in the
strike.
         ^REUTERS@