The forest rangers are striking at the same time as railway workers, who oppose President Macron’s public sector reforms ERIC FEFERBERG/AFP/GETTY IMAGESFrance’s 6,000 forest rangers stopped work yesterday in the latest strike against President Macron’s efforts to reform the public sector. Unions accused the government of trying to privatise the National Forests Office (ONF), which manages a quarter of France’s woodlands, and force it to turn a profit. Their one-day strike coincides with a month of rolling strikes by the SNCF union against the end of rail workers’ privileges and the opening of the network to other operators. Philippe Canal, leader of Snupfen, the main forest service union, said privatisation and industrialisation was turning public forests into “wood factories”. The ONF is being falsely blamed “like the SNCF for a deficit that was created by government decisions”, he said.

Source: The Times May 17, 2018 16:06 UTC