French strikes take hold

We know that the French unions are winding up their opposition to proposed labour reforms.  We know that there are fuel shortages all over the country because of blockades to all of France's major oil terminals.  We know that French air-traffic controllers are staging a series of walkouts over the coming weeks and the unions representing other services are lining up to join in.  BUT we didn't expect that all this would affect us even before we left Ireland!  We boarded the flight from Dublin to Toulouse bang on time at 11.20.  We taxied out for take-off and then, suddenly, turned off the runway, heading back towards the terminal.  The French airport authorities had announced that they couldn't guarantee any refuelling for inbound aircraft arriving at French airports.  So we taxied back to the stand to take on board extra fuel.  Unfortunately for us, lots of other aircraft were doing the same thing and our flight found itself in a queue to be fuelled to the brim before setting off to Toulouse.  Then the tankers feeding the planes ran out and had to return to the depots to get filled up again!  The result was that we sat aboard the aircraft in Dublin for nearly three hours before we finally got refuelled and were able to take off.  So; home to Lentillac late, tired, hungry, just a wee bit fed up!!!