As part of a new day of actions "dead ports", the port of Brest was blocked from Wednesday 06:00, according to the CGT. There are "no entrances, no exits of trucks," explained Sébastien Léon, CGT union delegate of Brest port workers.

On this port, already blocked on March 8 and 16, about fifty strikers, port workers and dockers, were on site, noted an AFP journalist.

Five containers, installed by means of carrying vehicles, blocked the access road to the Brest port and the strikers burned tires and wooden pallets.

According to Mr. Léon, no ships were unloaded and the strikers were still on site by mid-afternoon.

"I don't trust this government anymore," the trade unionist said.

After the remarks Tuesday of the President of the Republic considering that "the crowd" had "no legitimacy in the face of the people who express themselves, sovereign, through its elected representatives", the union representative "does not really know where we are going".

"It's still a hell of a mess, we can see in the streets, the fire that is happening, I do not know how far he will send us precisely with speeches like that," wondered Mr. Léon.

In Saint-Nazaire, a hundred demonstrators - dockers, handlers but also construction workers or from neighboring companies - also blocked the bridge of Saint-Nazaire at dawn, according to an AFP correspondent, preventing any vehicle traffic.

The atmosphere was particularly tense on the spot and street furniture was set on fire, according to an AFP photographer, who saw a road gantry half collapsed across the tracks after falling prey to the flames.

The demonstrators vacated the scene around 14:30 p.m. but traffic on the bridge, which spans the Loire estuary between Saint-Nazaire and Saint-Brévin-les-Pins, was not expected to be restored for several hours.

Dockers, port and construction workers, blocked the port of Brest and the bridge of Saint-Nazaire © LOIC VENANCE / AFP

On the port of Lorient, the two entrances that lead to the oil depot were also blocked in the morning by a hundred demonstrators. These were pushed back by the police to allow the intervention of firefighters to extinguish fires of wooden drums, found an AFP photographer.

Access was clear at midday.

© 2023 AFP