4 arrested over Air France violence

Four Air France employees were arrested Monday as part of the investigation into the violent scenes which saw one of the struggling airline's executives have his shirt ripped off and scale a fence to escape an angry mob, police sources said.

The four men arrested work for the Cargo Air France division but are not elected union officials, one of the sources said.

They were arrested "without incident" early Monday at their homes outside Paris.

Several hundred employees disrupted a meeting on October 5 at Air France's headquarters near Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport while executives were detailing plans to lay off 2,900 workers as part of cost-cutting measures.

Human resources director Xavier Broseta had his shirt ripped off and was helped over a fence by security guards, in a picture that was splashed across front pages around the world.

An internal investigation at the airline, which is 17.6 percent-owned by the state, has also identified around 10 employees believed to have been involved in the violence, another source said.

Air France is struggling to compete in the face of intense competition from global rivals.

Since the clashes at the meeting, it has resumed negotiations with its pilots about introducing more flexible working practices.
Source: AFP