Some 72 seasonal workers, mostly Muslims, had been stripped of their security clearance at the airport since May 2005.

PARIS — Trade unionists at the Charles de Gaulle-Roissy airport outside Paris on Friday, November 3, called for a general strike in protest at the expulsion of seasonal Muslims workers at the airport.

"We are going to call for a strike at the end of November and for a rally outside the prefecture in Roissy, which took the decision to remove the staff badges," said Didier Frassin, the head of the main CGT union at the airport, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

A meeting is also scheduled for Tuesday, November 7, for seven trade unions to decide whether to back the strike call and future actions.

Some 72 seasonal workers, mostly Muslims, had been stripped of their security clearance since May 2005 on claims of links to "extremists groups".

Jacques Lebrot, the Roissy deputy prefect, said that the workers posed "a risk to the airport's security".

He said that another 40 employees at the airport are currently being investigated as posing a possible security risk.

A complaint for discrimination has already been filed by trade unions over the expulsion of the airport workers.

Scandal

The trade unions refuted the claims of that the Muslim workers posed a "security threat", saying the workers have been unfairly targeted.

"The deputy prefect is just making allegations, not proving anything," said Philippe Decrulle, CFDT union leader at Air France.

"We are waiting for proof of the threat these employees represent -- not just shock statements."

Daniel Saadat, a lawyer for a group of workers appealing the decision, described the workers' expulsion as a "scandal".

"It is all totally vague, they have nothing to go on, it's a scandal," he noted.

A source has told IslamOnline.net that the expulsion of the Muslim workers from the Charles de Gaulle airport came under pressures from American and British authorities.

"Saint Denis Mayor Jean Francois Cordet said the French government came under intense pressures from the United States and Britain to sack the Muslim workers," the source told IOL on condition of anonymity.

The Movement Against Racism and for the Friendship Among Peoples has said it will sue Cordet for racial and religious discrimination.

Security fears involving workers at the Charles de Gaulle airport have been raised before with a book claiming in April the airport was infiltrated by "Islamic militants".

But anti-terrorist officials have cast doubts on claims made in "The Mosques of Roissy," by right-wing French politician Philippe de Villiers.

Villiers -- a presidential hopeful in next year's elections – was accused of playing on public fears of Islamic radicals to win votes.

In 2002, a French-Algerian airport baggage handler was arrested when weapons and explosives were found in his car. Police later said he had been the victim of a set up.