Police smash picket lines at French fuel depots

Riot police launched dawn raids on blockaded petrol depots across France today as nationwide strikes and demonstrations entered an eighth day.

Fires were lit by strikers in Le Mans, west of Paris, at 5am as police broke through picket lines using batons and riot shields.

There were similar scenes in Donges, in the Loire-Atlantique department, and the port of La Rochelle, in the Charente-Maritime, as President Nicolas Sarkozy vowed to get his country's fuel supply moving again.

As the police formed rings of steel around depots, interior minister Brice Hortefeux said: "There's a right to strike but this does not give people the right to blockade, to prevent people working and travelling."

A third of France's 12,500 petrol stations have run dry and most of the others are rapidly running out. The government has started using a 30-day reserve stock, and may soon be forced to break into a 60-day reserve designed for wartime emergencies.

At least a million people demonstrated across France yesterday against Mr Sarkozy's new Bill which raises the retirement age from 60 to 62. The law is expected to be passed tomorrow.

In the seaside town of Deauville, Mr Sarkozy said it was "unacceptable" that hooded protesters were torching cars and looting shops. In Le Mans an entire school was burned down early yesterday. Justice minister Michele Alliot-Marie also vowed to crack down on the trouble. She said: "The right to demonstrate does not mean the right to smash things up."

Francois Chereque, head of the CGT union, said: "The situation is an extremely serious one, but we must also appeal for calm."

The unions crushed pension and labour reforms in 1995 and 2006 with long-running protests.