French rail workers vote to end strike, helping president retool France

~ The collapse of the strikes a day after the start of negotiations suggested defeat for labor unions.

PARIS -- A transport strike that has crippled France for nine days in open defiance of President Nicolas Sarkozy's reform agenda was in its last gasp Thursday as rail workers around the country voted "yes" to return to the job.

The collapse of the strikes a day after the start of negotiations suggested defeat for labor unions -- and could clear the way for the president's ambitious program to retool France.

In 42 of 45 morning meetings, rail workers voted to return to work Friday, a tendency that continued in the afternoon, union officials said.

The development was good news for travelers who have been forced to cancel trips and invent new ways to get to work. Parisians stung by a subway strike have walked or used bikes and scooters to cross town.

Prime Minister Francois Fillon called on rail workers to restart traffic "completely and without delay." He thanked the French for their patience and unions for their "responsible attitude."

It can take days to return the vast rail system to full speed. Both the SNCF train authority and the RATP which runs Paris public transport indicated there would be clear improvements today but nothing close to full service. Pockets of resistance remained in southern France where strikers held out.

"We seem to be moving toward a total return to work by the weekend," said Didier Larrigualdie, head of the Workers' Force union at the RATP.

SNCF spokeswoman Julie Vion said a "dynamic" of returning to the job was in place.

The turnaround began Wednesday night after a first round of talks with unions protesting Sarkozy's plans to do away with retirement privileges reserved for rail workers and several other sectors. The government believes the reform is essential to modernizing the economy and saving the pension system.

Workers were expecting generous concessions during the talks, to conclude before the end of December.

Sarkozy, elected in May, has held firm on his promise to reform France from top to bottom with economic, social and political changes to make the country more competitive.

However, political rivals fear that Sarkozy will dismantle labor protections considered part of the French way of life and scrupulously watched over by unions. The reform in question was one small but crucial part of the whole.

"The political gain for Sarkozy is completely clear," said sociologist Guy Groux, of the prestigious Institute for Political Science in Paris. The president's electorate, he said, "will see a move of firmness" and a break with the past when reform plans folded under strike pressure.

But unions apparently cannot be counted out.

The rail strikes were useful, Groux said, because "the unions were able to get their demands on the negotiating table in a very public way."

Sarkozy faces other protest movements, from students to civil servants who have demanded talks over salary raises before the end of the month.

Some 3,000 students marched through Paris on Thursday to protest a law that opens the way for private funding at universities and, students fear, selectivity in a system renowned for its open-door policy. Students, backed by leftist unions, have blocked dozens of universities for weeks.

The special retirement reform that triggered the transport strikes struck a special chord. Under the plan, which concerns about a half-million people, employees will have to work for 40 years to qualify for full pensions compared to 37.5 years currently.

Previous governments have reformed the pension system in increments since 1993 but left the special retirement benefits alone. Trying to retool it in 1995 led to a three-week wave of strikes widely considered the worst since the protests of May 1968 that shook the government of then-President Charles de Gaulle.