Marseilles and Le Havre, France's largest ports, are at a standstill Thursday as dockworkers stage a 24-hour strike one day after the French Parliament approved the government’s port reform bill.

Dockworkers at the northwestern port of Nantes-Saint Nazaire also worked off the job, sparking fears of a major escalation of a campaign of strikes that has crippled oil and container traffic.

The National Assembly, or Parliament, voted 298-186 in favor of a bill that will significantly erode the state’s influence in the operation of seven public ports, including Marseilles and Le Havre, to improve their competitiveness, especially in container handling.

The CGT dockworkers union warned of further protests if the government of President Nicolas Sarkozy does not show flexibility over its plan to privatize container-handling at the seven ports.

Paris has set an Oct. 31 deadline for port authorities, unions and stevedores to reach agreement on how to transfer around 2,000 container crane operators from port payrolls to private terminal operators.

Le Havre and Marseilles have suffered a significant decline in container traffic since the strikes began in mid-April and are bracing for a further loss of business next week when the 17 member carriers of the Far Eastern Freight Conference impose a $250-per-TEU congestion surcharge on the two ports.

Le Havre has lost a third of its box traffic, and at least 80,000 TEUs has been diverted from Marseilles to other Mediterranean ports.

The government claims the reforms will create 30,000 new jobs and boost annual box traffic from 3.6 million TEUs in 2007 to 10 million TEUS in 2015.

By: Bruce Barnard