French ATC Workers in Single European Sky Protest

French air traffic control workers have started a three-day walk-out as they and others protest against an EU proposal to create a single airspace in Europe.
The Single European Sky programme poses a risk to the general public and will impact on ATC workloads, the strikers say. Therefore, in France and beyond, ATC walk-outs are either now in motion or soon to begin.
To deal with the expected air travel chaos, French aviation regulators have requested that airlines operating services into key cities in France cut their flights by half.
The European Commission believes that present airspace restrictions make the average flight in Europe some 40 kilometres longer than it needs to be. So, it wants to rub out all current airspace boundaries and establish one, unified airspace that covers all of Europe. That would take away from each nation the requirement to oversee flights over its own territory and, instead, air traffic control would be handled at centralised locations.
Single European Sky Protest
According to the EC, the benefits for European air travel would be significant, with regional airspace increased, costs lowered and delays driven down.
However, the Single European Sky protestors feel quite differently. For example, USAC-CGT - the leading French-based air traffic controllers' union - describes the planned changes as a 'violation of national sovereignty' and a 'direct attack on the public service nature of this sector'.
Affected airlines include easyJet (expecting to cancel around 128 flights per day), Ryanair (102 flights set to be cancelled today) and Lufthansa (125 cancellations today), along with British Airways. Affected airports, meantime, include those serving Paris, Nice, Toulouse, Marseilles, Bordeaux and, to a lesser extent, Marseilles.
France appears to be leading the way so far as these air traffic control strikes are concerned right now but, on 12 June, other countries' ATC workers have signalled their intent to join in, too.

http://www.airport-int.com/news/french-atc-workers-in-single-european-sky-protest.html