(Adds union comment)
PARIS (AFP)--French Prime Minister Francois Fillon called
Wednesday for charges against laid-off workers who vented their
anger by trashing a government building as fears grew of labor
unrest turning violent.
Workers from a plant owned by German tyre company Continental AG
(CON.XE) ransacked the offices Tuesday in the latest flare-up of
labor anger that has also seen employees take managers captive at
factories hit by the economic crisis.
"These are violent acts that are unacceptable," Fillon said
after Continental workers smashed windows and wrecked computers at
the offices of the regional administration in Compiegne, northeast
of Paris.
Fillon said they should face legal action for the rampage
triggered by a court's refusal to block the company's decision to
shut down the factory and scrap 1,120 jobs.
"But at the same time, these are violent acts carried out by a
minority of workers and they should not be the focus of all of our
attention, which should instead be directed at the future of
Continental," he told France Inter radio.
Continental announced the closure of its factory in Clairoix,
north of Paris, in March, the biggest single closure announced so
far in France, and workers have been waging a vocal campaign to
save their jobs.
Xavier Mathieu, the CGT union leader at the plant, hit back at
the government on Wednesday, insisting workers were driven to
desperation by a brutal management strategy.
"The people you saw yesterday were not vandals, but simply
people who are angry, outraged, on the verge of nervous
breakdown."
"They are talking about broken windows, computers, that's
nothing compared to the 1,100 lives that are about to be
shattered," he said, urging the state to impose a three-month
moratorium on the plant closure.
But the action at Continental and the wave of "boss-nappings"
have raised alarm over spiraling social unrest in France, which
looks set to sink deeper into recession in the coming months.
Fillon said the economy would shrink by 2.5% in 2009, revising
the government's previous forecast of a 1.5 percent fall, which was
viewed by independent economists as optimistic.
The International Monetary Fund for its part forecast a decline
of 3.0 in France's gross national product in a report issued
Wednesday.
Facing strong public resentment over corporate perks, Fillon
also took aim at executive bonuses, charging that companies were
stoking tension with "shocking" payouts to their managers.
The former boss of rescued Franco-Belgian bank Dexia, Axel
Miller, walked away from his job with a EUR825,000 severance
package, according to the bank's annual report released on
Monday.
In the latest "boss-napping" incident, workers at a US-owned
Molex Inc. ( MOLX) car parts supplier in southern France held two
managers captive at the plant for more than 24 hours before
releasing them late Tuesday.
President Nicolas Sarkozy earlier this month said locking up
company bosses in their offices was illegal and that he would not
allow "matters to go on like that."
No charges have so far been brought against employees for
detaining their bosses. In each case, the managers were released
unharmed, and most of them agreed to new negotiations.