French port workers suspend planned 48-hr strike

PARIS, March 8 (Reuters) - France's port and dock union, part of the CGT federation, said on Saturday it had suspended plans for a two-day strike to protest planned reforms of French state-owned ports.

In a statement, the union said it took its decision after the government offered to hold talks on Monday to try and resolve the dispute. The 48-hour strike had been due to start on March 11.

"Of course, if the meeting on March 10 is not fruitful then the Federation will call on all port workers to take national action in the following days," the union statement said.

The government wants to privatise the loading activities of seven out of nine public ports as part of reforms to be carried out in the spring. The seven ports are Marseille, Dunkirk, Le Havre, Rouen, Nantes-Saint-Nazaire, La Rochelle and Bordeaux.

The government has been under pressure from the shipping industry for years to reform French ports to make them more efficient, but has delayed doing so because port workers have high union membership and frequently go on strike.

Staff at Marseille's Port Autonome (PAM), which houses the 115,000 barrels-per-day Fos-Lavera oil hub, have held several strikes in the last couple of years, causing disruption to refining and other port activities.

The port of Rouen is Europe's largest grain export gate with more than 5 million tonnes of grain shipped a year. (Reporting by Nick Antonovics, editing by Mike Peacock)