Amazon a "destroyer" of bookshops

France's culture minister has branded online retailer Amazon a "destroyer" of bookshops in the latest confrontation between the Socialist government in Paris and America's giants of the digital economy. "Today, everyone has had enough of Amazon, which, by dumping, slashes prices to get a foothold in markets only to raise them once they have established a virtual monopoly," Culture Minister Aurelie Filippetti said.

"It is destructive for bookshops," the minister told a conference of booksellers Monday in the southwestern city of Bordeaux.

Filippetti said that she would be examining measures that could curb Amazon's growth in France by restricting the American giant's ability to combine offers of free deliveries with discounts of up to five percent on cover prices, which is the maximum allowed in France under existing legislation designed to protect small booksellers.

The attack on Amazon is the latest in a series of disputes between the French government and American companies including Google, Yahoo! and Apple. French authorities are already embroiled in a dispute with Amazon over a $252 million tax bill related to the company's sales in France between 2006 and 2010. Read more >>

Paris hit by wave of street muggings and grave robberies

Last week, police in the French capital arrested three people as part of a widening grave robbery investigation. There was further public outrage after two masked intruders shot dead a 52-year old precious metal worker when he tried to stop them stealing gold from his foundry in the chic central Parisian district of Le Marais.

Police said sky-high market prices for precious metals are acting as a magnet for thieves with scant regard for the living or the dead. In Pantin cemetery, in the north of Paris, dozens of bodies have recently been dug up, with gold teeth and jewellery stolen from them. Police sources said the three men seized last week were gravediggers employed by the city's cemeteries.

Last month, four other men – three from the same Pantin cemetery – were arrested and placed under investigation for aggravated theft, grave robbery and violating the integrity of a corpse.

According to a source close to the investigation, the men removed personal belongings from corpses in the freshest graves, opening them in the dead of night. Two of the men were caught wearing miner's helmets and gloves. Their boots were covered in fresh earth. One of the suspects was found to be carrying 10 gold teeth. Read more >>

Laid-off workers threaten to blow up French plant

Image via Wikipedia

By Agence France-Presse
CREPY-EN-VALOIS, France -- Workers at a French car accessories plant north of Paris threatened Friday to blow up their factory unless they were given better layoff compensation.

Employees at the Sodimatex plant placed petrol bombs near a large gas tank and were threatening to set them on fire.

"The plant is going to go up in smoke, if that's what they want," said one worker.

Managers sat down with union leaders and labour mediators at the town hall in Crepy-en-Valois in a bid to defuse tensions at the plant, where 92 jobs will be shed.

"The workers have high expectations about this meeting. There has to be a concrete result or else anything could happen. They are very determined," said Eric Lemoine, a union activist.

"Even if we tell them not to do it, some of them might not listen," said another union leader, Gerard Decleir.

Staff set fire to pieces of plastic and rolls of carpet at the factory, sending billowing black smoke into the sky as police deployed outside the plant's gates.

Industry Minister Christian Estrosi condemned the workers' action as "unacceptable" and called on them to settle the row with management through talks.

Workers are demanding compensation of 21,000 euros (28,000 dollars) each, much more than the 15,000 euros on offer from the owners. France has its highest unemployment rate in a decade, at 10 percent, with the car industry among the hardest-hit by the global slowdown.

The sector employs 10 percent of the total French workforce.

Last year, French workers hit by a wave of layoffs carried out a series of "bossnappings" to press demands for better redundancy packages, but the radical action has subsided over past months.

President Nicolas Sarkozy spoke out against the detentions, saying they were illegal, and vowed to take action.

In his appeal to the workers, the industry minister said "only dialogue can lead to results for the workers facing a painful situation with the closure of their plant. Violence and threats will only lead to a dead-end."

Sodimatex, which produces car carpets, announced last April that it planned to shut down its plant in Crepy-en-Valois and began talks on compensation. But months of negotiations hit an impasse and workers on Thursday decided to occupy the plant after police used tear gas to disperse a protest they were holding near the factory.

About 40 workers spent the night at the plant, sleeping on the factory's just-produced carpets.

Union activists contend they are seeking the same package as Sodimatex employees from another plant who were given 21,000 euros each when their factory was shut down in 2006.

52,000 angry French farmers riot, set fires, stop traffic

ABC's Christophe Schpoliansky reports from Paris:

Angry French farmers blocked the famous Champs-Elysees Avenue in Paris early this morning to call attention to the difficulties their sector is going though. Several other French cities were also affected. In Poitiers (western France), farmers dumped about a thousand cubic meters of soil in the city center. French media reported that several hundreds of tractors converged towards the centers of several French cities from north to south, disrupting or stopping traffic on roads and highways. 52,000 protesters took part in the protests nationwide, according to the FNSEA (Fédération Nationale des Exploitants Agricoles), France’s main farmers’ union.

In Paris, about 50 cereal growers set up barriers and dropped bales of hay on the chic Champs-Elysees avenue, next to the posh Fouquet’s restaurant where French President Nicolas Sarkozy celebrated his election in May 2007. Protesters set hay and tires on fire, completely blocking rush-hour traffic in several streets in the area.

“The farming world is dying”, Damien Greffin, president of the “Young Farmers” organization of the Ile-de-France (regrouping Paris and the surrounding departments) told Agence France Presse. “What we’re asking for, it is an increase in the price of raw material” he added, pointing out that a kilogram of wheat is sold 9 centimes these days for a production cost of 14 centimes.

In 2008, French farmers’ income dropped by as much as 20 percent and the situation is not expected to improve this year, according to the French Farm Ministry.

Farmers are asking the government for an emergency plan worth close to $2.1 billion.

“Today, the whole agricultural France is suffering,” Farm Minister Bruno Le Maire told France 2 TV at midday. “I’m currently working , based on the farm revenue for 2009, on the preparation of a global aid plan to the French agriculture”.

President Sarkozy announced in an interview published in Le Figaro newspaper today that he would take “strong initiatives” before the end of October for the farming sector.