Striking rail workers halted about half of French train services on Wednesday in a dispute over working time as a standoff between the militant CGT union and the Socialist government over a proposed labour law reform escalated.
CGT members voted to start rolling strikes at the country's 19 nuclear power plants from Wednesday evening to press demands to scrap the labour bill, and airline pilots announced a work stoppage late next week in a separate dispute over pay curbs.
That would coincide with the first days of the Euro 2016 soccer championship in France.
Tension mounted between the CGT and the Medef employers' federation, with the union urging energy workers to cut power supplies to the bosses' Paris headquarters.
The SNCF state railway said six out of 10 high-speed TGV trains were running, along with one-third of other inter-city services and half of regional trains. Eurostar trains to Britain were not affected, while 75 percent of services to Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland were running, and about 40 percent to Spain and Germany.
Three of the four rail unions called their members out on an open-ended strike over a planned reorganisation even though the government has intervened to press SNCF management to protect train drivers' weekends off.
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