France is to privatise the loading activities of seven out of nine public ports as part of a reform plan to be carried out in the spring, Prime Minister Francois Fillon said on Monday.
The government has been under pressure from the shipping industry to reform French ports to make them more efficient, but has delayed doing so because port workers have high union membership and frequently go on strike.
The most powerful union, the CGT, is opposed to the reform.
"I have asked (junior minister for transport) Dominique Bussereau to prepare a plan to relaunch the French public ports which should end in legislative measures," Fillon said in a speech in the southern port town of Marseille.
"First of all, we need to transfer the handling activities done by the ports to private operators," he said.
Staff at Marseille's Port Autonome (PAM), which houses the 115,000 barrels-per-day Fos-Lavera oil hub, have held several strikes in the last couple of years, causing disruption to refining and other port activities.
One 18-day strike last year at the terminal threatened to shut down some French refineries and cause a fuel shortage in south-eastern France.
In an effort to head off concerns about jobs, Fillon said he would be very "attentive to the situation of port workers."
He said discussions would take place port by port with the aim of nearly tripling container capacity in French ports by 2015, creating 30,000 jobs.
Shipping industry players have been calling for the reform to bring French ports up-to-date with competitors. In 20 years, Marseille, France's largest port, has dropped from first to 11th place in the Mediterranean for container transport, and is still losing market share. (Reporting by Sophie Louet and Muriel Boselli; Writing by Anna Willard; Editing by Anthony Barker)
The government has been under pressure from the shipping industry to reform French ports to make them more efficient, but has delayed doing so because port workers have high union membership and frequently go on strike.
The most powerful union, the CGT, is opposed to the reform.
"I have asked (junior minister for transport) Dominique Bussereau to prepare a plan to relaunch the French public ports which should end in legislative measures," Fillon said in a speech in the southern port town of Marseille.
"First of all, we need to transfer the handling activities done by the ports to private operators," he said.
Staff at Marseille's Port Autonome (PAM), which houses the 115,000 barrels-per-day Fos-Lavera oil hub, have held several strikes in the last couple of years, causing disruption to refining and other port activities.
One 18-day strike last year at the terminal threatened to shut down some French refineries and cause a fuel shortage in south-eastern France.
In an effort to head off concerns about jobs, Fillon said he would be very "attentive to the situation of port workers."
He said discussions would take place port by port with the aim of nearly tripling container capacity in French ports by 2015, creating 30,000 jobs.
Shipping industry players have been calling for the reform to bring French ports up-to-date with competitors. In 20 years, Marseille, France's largest port, has dropped from first to 11th place in the Mediterranean for container transport, and is still losing market share. (Reporting by Sophie Louet and Muriel Boselli; Writing by Anna Willard; Editing by Anthony Barker)