No it doesn’t stand for Economic Union. The days when the EU is “just” a group of countries working together for the betterment of trade relations are long gone.
Actually I lived in London for 5 years, and only just moved out a few weeks ago.
I was affected by strikes, but you can’t compare those strikes to the miners’ strikes, or what is happening in france.
Also there was little public support, especially when people learned the fuckdumb reasons for some of the strikes.
I agree, and I’m certainly not arguing from a position of “strikes are a thing of the past in the UK”. I was simply describing the difference between the culture in the UK and france.
<possible hijack>
I think one mistake that the government has made is not having an open discussion of what proportion of the deficit has been caused by the bank bailouts.
There’s a widespread feeling (which never seems to get challenged) that the deficit was entirely caused by the banks. And this makes people angry.
From my best attempt at finding independent figures, the bank bailouts make up only10% of the deficit. And while the global recession caused by the financial crisis has had an obvious effect, it could be argued that governments should be prepared for periodic recessions.
</possible hijack>
Precisely. Which is why the rest of the EU shouldn’t even dream of interfering.
What difference does that make ? They’re French citizen acting lawfully and within their rights.
Perhaps there needs to. Good luck finding a French politician willing to not veto the living daylights out of, nevermind signing anything even vaguely resembling such an obligation.
As I’m sure every other country and politician of the EU would welcome and relish the idea of similar Instant ECC Workforces showing up to take over their turfs whenever a social movement, or really anything not entirely EU-compliant goes down. Epic popularity boost, right there. Political capital coming out of the ears.
Why, since you were talking about reducing obstacles to the flow of money, they could even take over the British banks and finally get them up to speed on this whole Euro thing !
…Why are you frowning, all of a sudden ? 
You’re probably right, at that. Still, it’s not like this kind of thing is entirely unheard of, even outside of France (nope, I have no idea what came of that story or if it was true - I’m just illustrating the point). It’s one of those conspiracy theories that actually makes sense to me - after all, if the government has a vested interested in marginalizing a political movement, what better way than to infiltrate them and do whatever bad things you accuse them of doing yourself ? COINTELPRO happened, after all.
Does that mean I’m sure it’s routinely happening, or that it’s happening in this here case ? No, of course not. But it wouldn’t really faze me either. It’s not like our current Pres. or his cabinet are beacons of integrity and ethics 
Oh boy. Well, don’t base your opinion only on what I write. I’m kinda very much biased against myself, I’ll freely admit it. My student days haven’t been over long enough for me to take a liking to the po-po just yet :). And really, like everywhere, you’re going to have people who like 'em, and people who don’t. For one thing, Sarkozy got elected in large part because he promised to put cops everywhere, all the time. So there’s that.
OTOH, I would think most everyone agrees riot cops (or, to give them their official title, the Republican Security Companies) live for breaking skulls, here as I guess anywhere in the world. That’s what they’re trained to do after all, and I don’t think anybody picks this particular career out of a hat. They’re the prime indiscriminate police brutality outfit. So, yeah, I don’t like 'um much :D. And some like them all the more for it.
It certainly would. Which boils down to Rune’s suggestion : they’re striking ? Fire the lot of them and hire more malleable guys instead. Which I looked up, and is illegal in France BTW (and, apparently, everywhere in the EU as well, depending on what art. 28 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU really means).
But even if it was, think about how it would go down in the press : “French workers exercize their lawful & constitutional right to strike, government strips them of their jobs and ships in Belgians/the Military/Government Contractors to take their place”. Yeah, good luck on that re-election. And every one after that.
Plus Khaki’s right - the mere whiff of the Army getting anywhere near that kind of civilian movement would give the media (not to mention the opposition) seizures. You’d hear the cries of “Police state !!” all the way from Honolulu.
Resolved: You don’t know the first thing about the EU. Seriously, try and get a modest grasp on some of the key things that you rant about before posting.
The EU needs to interfere as the French have proved once again they’re not responsible enough to govern themselves. One strike every couple of year: acceptable. Five strikes shutting down airspace in ten months: antisocial. The countries being adversely affected by this (read: the rest of the EU) need to slap these idiots into shape.
What don’t I know about the EU? Enlighten me.
I wasn’t trying to ramp up the argument, just genuinely trying to clarify what you were getting at. ATC workers in one country certainly may not like having to pick up the slack, and simultaneously weaken their corresponding union in another country. But, if the chips were down, what could they actually do about it?
Sovereignty ultimately resides with the people. If the strike has enough popular support, it’s the government which will give way, one way or the other.
I realize that, but the original point was strengthening economic connections between European countries for the betterment of all. If you hitch your wagon to someone else’s horse, you suddenly have an interest in keeping their horse healthy, don’t you? From the very start the EU was about linking Europe together.
Well, the downside is that when you’re economically linked to someone else their economic/social woes suddenly become much more relevant to you. You got a wagon hitched to a team of horses, some of which are faltering (Greece, etc.) and now the one called France is having a hissy fit. Deal with it. You can’t just say “it’s France’s problem, leave us out of it” at this point because if the horse called France starts kicking someone else it going to get hit.
… right. You sell that treaty of yours real good, boyo :).
Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it ? Go on strike :D.
Strike.
Per your OP, you seem to be working on the assumption that the EU is in a position to levy penalties on France for what is going on now, and that it is in a position to legislate on whether workers can go on strike. Neither is the case, and in my view (but that is beside this point) neither should be the case. As others have pointed out above, the EU is not a country, but the member states of the EU are - and the fact that people going on strike cause disruptions for others (that is the entire purpose of going on strike) does not change anything about that.
In other words: just because you don’t like what another country is doing does not mean you can just meddle in their business - they are still a sovereign state. All this nonsense you spout about ‘the French have shown they cannot govern themselves’ and ‘they should be slapped into shape’ is both arrogant and indicative of your ignorance of how the EU works: we don’t ‘slap countries into shape’.
Example:
http://airtravel.about.com/library/weekly/aa061902a.htm
bolding mine.
not the same issue but others unions came out in support of the French.
My question was whether the ATC workers in other countries felt their solidarity with the French union was greater than their loyalty to the civil authority in their own nations.
Sounds like for some of them, the answer is yes.
Apart from the EU does have the power to order individual member states to enact legislation, in particular, it’s within the EU’s power to force the French to make ATC strikes illegal following the case involving Spain in 2007. Further, this isn’t a case of “just” meddling within a nation’s affairs for the sake of it. This is a case of one country’s inability to govern itself affecting the rest of the EU on a regular basis. We wouldn’t stand idle if France closed its land borders and forced all EU haulage to take sea routes. Why should its air space be any different? The whole point of the EU is ensuring the free flow of trade and money within the Continent. Legislating here is entirely within the purview of the EU, and entirely appropriate, in my opinion.
Could you expand on this? What happened in Spain in 2007?
From Wikipedia:
The case went to the ECJ, which upheld the Commission’s right to legislate on criminal matters but ruled against the Commission in deciding that they cannot specify what the penalties for breaking their legislation must be (this is up to the individual member states).
Not necessarily. They could be supporting the cause rather than the union. They may view the fight as one worth fighting and one that they may ultimatly have to fight on their own doorstop as well. Unions are political, it’s not just a bunch of guys feeling solidarity with one another while sing The Red Flag 
When did strikes (which are legal and protected in each individual member state) become criminal matters ?
When they happen in contravention of laws stating that they are illegal.
Nope. Police and various other services cannot strike in the UK. High time the same was applied to French ATC who spend more time on the picket line than they do working.