Near lynching of Air France chiefs leads to national outrage

The French political class and trade union movement have unanimously condemned the near lynching of two Air France executives on Monday.

"I came to Air France because Air France is in shock and when Air France is in shock, all France is in shock," prime minister Manuel Valls said on Tuesday, after meeting Xavier Broseta, director of human resources, and Pierre Plissonnier, who is in charge of long-haul flights, at the airline's headquarters at Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport.

Photographs of both men being assaulted, their clothes torn from their backs by an angry mob, created a worldwide media sensation.

“These actions were the work of thugs,” Valls said. He promised that the perpetrators would be identified and subjected to “heavy punishment”.

President François Hollande said, “Social dialogue matters. And when it is interrupted by violence . . . one sees the consequences for the image and attractiveness [of the country].”

Political football

The incident immediately became a political football between right and left.

Nicolas Sarkozy

, the former president and leader of the conservative party Les Républicains, blamed the crisis at Air France on government inaction.

“This isn’t [the revolutionary terror of] 1793,” Sarkozy said. “We can’t accept that two executives almost be lynched by men in trade union uniforms, who belong to unions that endorsed Hollande in 2012.” (Sarkozy was defeated by Hollande in the 2012 presidential election.)

Air France's "plan A" was for pilots to work an additional 100 hours annually for the same pay. Air France pilots are among the highest paid in Europe, but they refused. So the airline moved to "plan B", which means 2,900 people, including 300 pilots, 900 flight attendants and 1,700 ground staff, will lose their jobs. Air France has already cut 15,000 jobs from a total of 63,000 since 2012.

The somewhat ambivalent public reaction was summed up by a radio presenter who asked: “Which is more violent: cutting 2,900 jobs or tearing the shirts off executives?”

Management were discussing the “Perform 2020” plan with union representatives while Air France employees demonstrated outside headquarters on Monday morning. A dozen men managed to enter the building through a back door, then came through to open the iron gates to the demonstrators, who easily overwhelmed police.

The demonstrators burst into the room where the meeting was ending. The top management escaped, but Messers Broseta and Plissonnier were pushed into a corner. Security guards tried to extricate them from the jostling, screaming mob.

Assailants shouted “Resign!” and “Naked!” as they tore at the executives’ clothes.

"I saw Broseta fall down," said Ronald Noirot, a trade unionist who condemned the attack. "It looked as if he was being led to the scaffold. I thought they were going to lynch him."

Once outside, the Air France executives had to climb a wire fence to reach the safety of a police line. Broseta was naked from the waist up, still wearing a necktie. Plissonier’s shirt was in tatters.

Seven people were injured in the assault, including a security guard who was rendered unconscious. On one level, the near lynching was merely another example of France’s perennial need to keep storming the Bastille. It follows a long series of “boss-knappings” and destruction of company property in industrial disputes.

On another level, the ugly interlude raised the question of France’s ability to regain competitiveness in a globalised world. Air France’s labour costs are 25 per cent higher than its European competitors’, because of the weight of French social charges.

Social peace

The unions were unanimous in calling on the state to intervene in negotiations. The state owns 16 per cent of the airline, and has always preferred to give in to union demands in the interest of preserving social peace.

When Air France merged with KLM in 2004, they formed one of the world’s leading airlines. They have been unable to compete with low cost companies on short flights. Heavily subsidised airlines from the Persian Gulf have eaten into profits on long haul routes.

Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary has cruelly predicted that Air France will end up being taken over by a Gulf airline. The death of their national airline would be a terrible blow to French pride.