Monday 30 June 2008
By Y. Royer and France 2 (video) / AFP (wire)Hundreds of truckers staged new protests against high fuel prices across France on Monday, blocking main highways and snarling commuter traffic around Paris.
About 100 trucks blocked the A1, the main motorway taking holiday drivers from the Channel and northern Europe to Paris and the south of France in both directions near Lille. Similar blockades were set up on key roads outside of Channel ports.
Police said there were huge tailbacks on many roads into Paris as scores more trucks staged a go-slow on a Paris outer ring road to the east and south of the capital. Others were planned for nearly every main highway heading into Paris, the National Transport Operators Federation said.
The trucks moved at about 15 kilometers (10 miles) an hour and the federation protest organisers said the trucks would all converge on the main Paris ring road, one of the busiest in Europe.
Similar jams built up around other big cities including Bordeaux on the Atlantic and Nice on the Mediterranean, where the main coastal highway was blocked.
The truckers federation organised a first protest on June 16 against the rocketing price of diesel fuel and is now calling for tougher action to demand government compensation.
French truckers say they pay more in tax than rival firms in other European nations.
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