Plane passengers hit by strike

LONDON, England -- European air travellers face widespread disruption after French air traffic controllers began a 36-hour strike.

British Airways has cancelled all but four of its services to France as a result of the strike, called to protest against the liberalisation of Europe's airspace.

It is not yet known how badly the strike will hit flights to French destinations or those passing through French airspace.

BA said it was cancelling 93 of its 97 scheduled flights between the UK and France during the 36-hour strike which starts at 1800GMT on Wednesday. It is due to finish on Friday at 0600GMT.

BA says it is also warning passengers to expect some delays to a number of its services due to re-routing to avoid French airspace.

The French civil aviation authority, DGAC, said it would ensure minimal service during the strike but that only "a limited number of flights will be assured ... at French airports."

Unions want the French government to lobby against a Europe-wide air-traffic plan, which they say will lead to privatisation of civil aviation.

John Freeman, a spokesman for the UK's National Air Traffic Service, told the Press Association: "French law requires that controllers must provide some cover but how much cover that is would depend on how many go to work."

The European Union hopes to implement a "single sky" plan to eliminate nationally run air traffic control.

The plan would let planes fly routes mapped out by logic rather than Europe's borders.

The plan's proponents say it would boost capacity by up to 50 percent, making room for more planes in the skies and at the gates.

The strike coincides with similar disruption over different issues by the country's bank workers and police officers.

Bank of France workers responsible for the distribution of euro notes went on strike for a second day on Wednesday, slowing preparations for the launch of euro cash in January.

"The strike is still going on today," Frederic Philippe, Secretary General of the SNA union of workers at the central bank, told Reuters.

"It's being disrupted," he said of the distribution of euros. But he added: "They (strikers) are not against the euro."

The workers are striking over work conditions, wages and management's communication, which they say is poor. The strike concerns a department at the Bank of France in Paris in which around 300 workers are employed.

Elsewhere, hundreds of French gendarmes took to the streets for a second day on Wednesday in an unprecedented protest aimed at wringing concessions from the government on working conditions and pay.

Around 700 uniformed gendarmes, many in police vehicles, gathered outside their regional headquarters in the Loire Valley city of Nantes in defiance of a ban on demonstrations by the 200-year-old paramilitary police force.

"We wouldn't be mounting a protest on this scale if it wasn't serious," said one demonstrator who declined to be identified.

To sidestep the legal ban on demonstrations by gendarmes, they say they are taking part in an action rather than a demonstration.

There were similar protests on Tuesday involving around 300 gendarmes -- some masked to hide their identity from superiors -- mainly concentrated around the southern cities of Marseille and Montpellier.

Separately, a group of 80 uniformed and retired gendarmes protested outside their headquarters in the Basque country town of Saint-Pee-sur-Nivelle in southwest France.