Holiday chaos as strikers shut down Chunnel

Striking French customs officers chained themselves to the main London-Paris railway line at the mouth of the Channel Tunnel today, causing massive delays for thousands of British holidaymakers.

Eurotunnel and shuttle services were paralysed as dozens of frontier security men shut down the busy cross Channel rail link.

Customs unions, staging a nationwide protest over pension rights and working conditions, also pledged to halt all ferry crossings between Britain and France later today.

French CRS riot police arrived at the Eurotunnel terminal in Coquelles with bolt cutters after the protest there began at 9am.

Several customs men were cut loose and ordered to leave while others arrived in smaller groups to chain themselves to different sections of track. The dispute, which began on Wednesday, caused long delays for Eurostar passengers in Paris yesterday as customs patrols staged workto-rule action over the lengthy security procedures they are expected to carry out in the wake of 11 September.

Two-hour long queues for the Eurostar check-in developed as guards spent 10 minutes searching each passenger boarding the train. The action triggered an afternoon of delays of trains from Paris to London. Elsewhere in France, officers picketed the entrance to Toulouse airport, delaying the arrival of hundreds of passengers on internal flights. Strikers also set up roadblocks on the A9 and A10 motorways in south and west France creating gridlock.

Union spokesman Jean- Marc Querillacq said 6,000 customs officers had joined the action, timed for maximum effect only three weeks before the presidential elections.