La Poste - Most French people say no to postal privatisation

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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PARIS, Oct. 5 (Xinhua) -- Over 90 percent of about 2 million French people who cast ballots in the unofficial referendum last week oppose the government's plan to privatize national postal system, according to the result released Monday by the vote organizers.

Left-wing party, the Socialist, along with groups of unions launched the vote since last Monday, asking citizens "the government wants to change the status of La Poste (the postal service) to private, do you agree with the project?"

The number of people casting the vote all over France reached 2,123,717, among which 2,092,016 answered no to the question, according to National Committee Against the Privatization of the Post, which organized the vote and includes political parties, labor unions and civil society groups.

France has committed to convert its national postal service into publicly owned limited company by 2011 under European Union rules agreed on Oct. 1, 2007.

Economy Minister Christine Lagarde said the reform is not a privatization, but ways "to strengthen" the postal system.

The full liberalization of postal service received applause in Britain, Germany, Sweden and Finland, which have sold their postal service to private investors step by step. However, many French people are in fear that the full liberalization oriented by profit may affect the service quality, so that groups of unions went on strike in September to protest.

The French government gave green light to last week's vote, but some ministers expressed doubts on the credibility of the vote.

The Socialist Party announced Saturday that they will propose a popular referendum in parliament by mid-October, the Radio France International said.

[ExSG]

Whilst the poll may well be correct, there is a total lack of publicity on the matter.

The Socialists are not strong enough to overide Sarkozy's influence on the media so only the Unions will be the ones able to elevate the public's conscience. One things the French Unions do well is support each other while in conflict. It is one of those overiding republic things, like the farmers getting tacit support even when its incredibly inconvenient for the public at large.

I'm not sure that the French 'La Postie' is held in the same affection as in the UK. We will see.

ExSG

[Shrek]

The unfortunate thing is we used to have the same unity before Thatcher and she made everything that unions did to show solidarity illegal. The red tories have never given us any of these rites back. We are probably the most controlled society in the EU, I think even Americas Union laws are not as severe