PARIS -- Internet users pressing France Telecom to lower its access rates say that a second strike held on Sunday had significantly cut into Internet usage in France.
The Association of Unhappy Internauts, which called for Sunday's strike, said Monday that the number of people participating in some Internet discussion groups had declined by between 8 and 62 percent during the day.
Chat groups run by France Telecom's own Wanadoo Internet service were among the hardest hit, the strike organizers said.
France Telecom had not yet compiled figures of its own and had no immediate comment on the group's claims, a spokeswoman for the French telephone giant said. As the country's monopoly provider of local phone services, France Telecom provides the main pathway for most users to reach the Internet.
The protesters claimed between 50 to 90 percent of those who use the country's main providers boycotted the Internet on 13 December, the day of the group's first strike, but France Telecom put the rate at only 10 percent.
French Web surfers pay France Telecom between 8.7 and 16.7 francs (US$1.60 to $3.00) an hour for time on the Net, with additional fees to their Internet providers. The activists propose a flat monthly fee of 200 francs ($36) for unlimited local calls, but France Telecom prefers to only give discounts to heavy users.
About 6 percent of the French population owns a computer.
Copyright© 1999 Reuters Limited.
