Protests and strikes give Paris Olympian headache

Tens of thousands of French workers marched on Paris yesterday and strikes crippled public transport, embarrassing the government as Olympic officials visited to assess the city's bid to host the 2012 Games.

"We would have preferred a better advertisement for the candidacy, obviously," Sports Minister Jean-Francois Lamour told Le Figaro newspaper.

Paris is competing against four other cities to host the Games, but is widely regarded as the favourite. The demonstration against labour reforms was one of many across the country. Organisers said 150,000 were on the streets in Paris and 800,000 across France.

Unions expressed support for the capital's Olympic ambitions and stressed that the strikes by rail and energy workers, teachers and post office staff were to protests against job cuts and government moves to make the 35-hour work week more flexible.

Queues built up at railway stations as only one train in four served Paris suburbs and some services to cities in southern France were cut by two-thirds. Some 30 per cent of rail workers took part in the strike, operator SNCF said at midday.