FRANCE is in the grip of a gathering crisis after riot police and students fired tear gas and petrol bombs at each other and the transport system was hit by fuel shortages and blockades.

Despite claims that it had petrol provision ''under control'', the government said it had activated an emergency crisis cell charged with maintaining fuel supplies.

The opposition Socialists criticised Francois Fillon, the Prime Minister, for failing to speak to the unions over proposed pension reforms, which would raise minimum and full retirement ages to 62 and 67.


''We have a Prime Minister who thinks he is Churchill but who is only Thatcher,'' said Harlem Desir, the Socialists' deputy leader. ''He is trying to make us think he is carrying out great reforms to save our economy, but in fact he is smashing our social model.''

The Socialists, like the unions, want to allow the French to continue to retire at 60 despite rising life expectancy, saying the shortfall could be filled by increasing tax on capital and the number of years a person paid into the system.

Mr Fillon said his government has already made concessions but would not back down on the two most contentious changes. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the reform would pass despite the strikes.

All 12 of France's oil refineries remained closed because of strike action and many fuel depots were blocked by pickets. About 1500 petrol stations on the forecourts of French supermarkets ran out of fuel, according to their industry association. The 4500 filling stations at shopping centres around France supply 60 per cent of fuel used by drivers.

In Marseille, two-metre-high piles of litter dotted the streets, as 4000 tonnes of rubbish lay uncollected, thanks to an open-ended strike by refuse workers.

A long-running port strike has stranded tankers and other ships in the Mediterranean.

The UFIP oil industry lobby has warned that France may have serious fuel supply problems by midweek. A spokesman for Exxon Mobil described the situation as ''critical''.

Police used tear gas to quell protests in the eastern towns of Mulhouse and Montbeliard and clashed with youths in Lyon who smashed a bus shelter, looted a cafe and burnt several cars. Students briefly blocked traffic at Paris town hall and police hemmed in 400 protesters on the Champs-Elysees.

Truck drivers increased pressure on the government to revoke its bill, which the Senate is due to approve today, by staging ''snail operations'' on motorways.

Half of flights to and from Paris Orly airport and a third of flights at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle and elsewhere in France were cancelled last night as strikers rallied at airports.