Thousands protest Airbus cutback plans

TOULOUSE, France — Thousands of striking Airbus workers demonstrated Tuesday in Toulouse, the European aircraft maker's headquarters, to protest plans to cut 10,000 jobs and spin off or close six European plants.

Some 15,000 workers took part in the demonstrations, trade unions said. Police in the southern French city estimated there were 12,000 protesters.

"We don't want to become Airbus odd-jobs men; we want to acquire new skills," said Jean-François Knepper, an official with Force Ouvrière, the strongest Airbus labor union in France.

Besides the job cuts — of which 4,300 would be made in France — Airbus plans to sell or close three plants and find industrial partners to take over and upgrade three more facilities producing fuselage and wing parts. Two of the six affected sites are in France, three in Germany and one in Britain.

In a sign that the industrial action could be growing, the Toulouse demonstration was joined by anti-globalization leader José Bové and other figures from the political left, as well as the top national officials of the five union federations behind the strike. Smaller protests took place at Airbus facilities in Saint-Nazaire and Nantes, western France.

The European Metalworkers' Federation, a Brussels-based trade-union organization, called for another day of strikes and protests by Airbus workers across Europe on March 16.

The demonstrations have thrust the Airbus restructuring into France's presidential-election campaign, with candidates making competing promises of government intervention to bolster the troubled aircraft maker.

In an about-face, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, the conservative governing party's candidate, said Monday that the French state should be better represented as a shareholder in Airbus parent company EADS and subscribe to any new share issue.

Sarkozy suggested only last week that governments made poor strategic shareholders and should leave private investors to run European Aeronautic Defence and Space (EADS).

The opposition Socialists have meanwhile given their support to a bid by several French regions to buy a stake in the Franco-German defense group, balancing what they see as political interference by German regional authorities.

Socialist presidential candidate Ségolène Royal, who drew fire from German officials last week after calling for the Airbus restructuring plan to be put on hold, met German Chancellor Angela Merkel for talks Tuesday and sought afterward to play down the differences.

"The state is much less directly involved in Germany than in France, so our approach to these questions is a little different," Royal said, insisting that Merkel had "ruled nothing out."

The German leader suggested that any role for governments in Airbus reforms should not go beyond research funding, Royal nevertheless conceded. "She believes that if state intervention were necessary, that intervention would be in the field of research."

French calls for increased government involvement in Airbus are "linked to the election campaign," German Economics Minister Michael Glos also said today.

The French government owns 15 percent of EADS, while Paris-based Lagardère owns 7.5 percent. Their combined stake is balanced by Stuttgart-based DaimlerChrysler, which holds 22.5 percent of voting rights in the defense group.

EADS is struggling to cope with the weaker U.S. dollar, the currency in which airliners are priced, and a $6.5 billion profit shortfall due to the A380 superjumbo's two-year delay — while also funding a new $15.2 billion jet program, the midsize A350 XWB.

Associated Press reporters Laurence Frost in Paris and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.