Hi Jacques! mon ami?
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WE CONTINUE this series with more cases drawn from contact with members whose work takes them outside the United Kingdom. Next month we will concentrate on matters more related to these shores, First, though we applaud the action taken by our French counterpart organisation, the CNSF and particularly its president, Francois de Saulieu, and secretary-general, JeanClaude Pechin.
Two of their letters expressing disgust at the passive reaction of the French police to the recent hijack are printed below. They reveal the true spirit of the Routiers organisation. It is a pity that the chauvinistic transport ministers of the EEC can't adopt a similar approach in their discussions on European Permits, where to date the position is a stalemate.
To M. Gaston Defferre, Minister of the Interior, and to M. Fiterman, Minister of Transport.
Two English lorry drivers have been stopped and held by demonstrators. Their lorries were unloaded and goods destroyed.
Similar incidents occurred as a result of action taken by farmers or wineproducers last year.
Attacks on lorry drivers in Iran and in Saudi Arabia are shocking, but France is a civilised country and such goings on here are inexcusable.
Apparently, in Normandy, police and forces of law and order did nothing to free the drivers, quite the opposite in fact. If the government is completely unable to protect foreigners in the course of their work in France, then orders should be given for lorries to be stopped at the border and sent back.
There is a worrying possibility that in the future frustrated drivers will jump down into the crowd of demonstrators or provide themselves with weapons. This is a heavy responsibility for the French Government, and I believe it is my duty to make you aware of the serious consequences of attacks on professional drivers who ought to be able to carry out their work. They are not in any way responsible for the aggressive behaviour of any violent group that is apparently beyond your control.
To M. Gaston Defferre, Minister of the Interior In June after studying a report on the blockades organised by farmers and their consequences for lorry drivers, you told the French Organisation of lorry drivers: "That you would see to it that regional heads of the authorities in charge of law and order would take whatever steps were necessary in the circumstances for the general good."
It seems that during the incidents of last month the regional authorities forgot these directives as the intervention of the President of the Republic was necessary to get the English drivers released to their Embassy.
But it is the future that worries us. Our colleagues, lorry drivers from abroad, must be allowed to drive as freely in France as our own French drivers.
If this is impossible, then you must have the courage to close the frontiers. Our colleagues are professional drivers who have contracts to keep for their companies. Until now, they have had the right to refuse to go to the Middle East. We used to believe that they would be protected in France by the authorities.