Thousands of French Airbus workers downed tools and called a lightning strike today protesting against a restructuring plan that is to cost 10,000 jobs across Europe, including 4,300 in France.

The centre of Toulouse was brought to a grinding halt as more than 100 hundred buses brought staff from factories to the city to protest against the job losses.
Unions have since threatened further industrial action over the job losses and followed the lead of their German counterparts who staged work stoppages last week.
As already reported, the proposed job losses at Airbus has become a hot political issue in France ahead of the April Presidential elections and French Finance Minister Thierry Breton has repeated the Government's pledge to provide extra money for the planemaker to help it out of its current mess caused by production delays to its A380 superjumbo airliner.