By Brian Love
PARIS, Nov 25 (Reuters) - Truck drivers set up roadblocks across France on Monday after pay talks collapsed and airlines scrapped flights ahead of a walkout by controllers.
Truckers, angry about a pay offer from employers that split the trade union movement, mounted some 36 blockades by early Monday watched by police with orders not to let them paralyse the economy.
"The right to strike must not be confused with blockading the country," Transport Minister Gilles de Robien said.
Roadblocks began Sunday night. Protesters tried to step up the pace on Monday, setting up a major roadblock at a food depot in Lille in the north.
Media described the level of blockades as weak and highlighted divisions among unions.
The truck drivers' protest was set to snowball with a 32-hour strike by air traffic controllers from Monday evening and marches on Tuesday by tens of thousands of rail workers and other state employees fearful of privatisation and the future of French public services.
British Airways said it had cancelled 64 flights between London and France on Monday and Tuesday. French aviation authorities said wider disruption was expected.
Two trade unions that represent a majority of truck drivers, the CFDT and CGT, faced a serious test of their power on the first full day of protest, after several small unions broke ranks to agree a pay deal with employers on Sunday evening.
Protesters, mostly summoned by the CFDT and CGT unions, used lorries and cars to block the Lille food depot.
Truck drivers set up a roadblock on the ringroad around the city of Caen, west of Paris, letting private motorists pass but stopping trucks. Similar blockades were under way near the Channel shipping port of Le Havre and another one on a key entry point to the motorway from the north to Paris.
TRUCKER MUSCLE TESTED
That was still a far cry from the hundreds of blockades that dried up petrol stations and choked food supplies, borders and international freight in conflicts that flared in 1992, 1996 and 1997.
"We're a long way from nationwide blockade even if things are far from perfect this morning," junior transport minister Dominique Busereau said, adding an appeal to truckers to get back to negotiations with employers.
Bernard Thibault, national leader of the CGT union, played down the union divisions.
"We will need a few more hours to evaluate the situation," he said.
STANDOFF WITH GOVERNMENT
France's five-month-old, centre-right government warned it would take action to prevent a repeat of those bitter conflicts that crippled key industries and disrupted trade.
Police were deployed to protect border posts and key sites like the Genevilliers river port near Paris, a hub for fuel and pharmaceutical distribution to the capital and abroad.
Police were mobilised in Strasbourg in eastern France to ensure a trade route across the Rhine into Germany remained open and stood by at other strategic sites such as the Ambes and Bassens fuel depots near Bordeaux.
"The lads are very mobilised, they are going for it," CFDT union member Maxime Dumont said.
CFDT and the CGT trade union, which together represent over half France's unionised truckers, rejected an employer offer of a 14 percent pay rise over three years, but the offer late on Sunday that was accepted by smaller unions.
Those four unions -- the FO, CFTC, CGC and FNCR -- were to put the offer to their delegates on Monday.
Thierry Douine of the CFTC union said it was time to seek a truce. "We believe it's time to calm things down," he said.
The division hit morale among some of the truckers who were erecting makeshift barricades, with fires and food, in the dark outside the food depot in the Lomme suburb of Lille.
"Yes, I fear our chances will be smaller," said Jacques Delaine, one of the men on the blockade."
Hauliers, who say their margins have been cut by fierce competition, refused worker demands to pay a thirteenth month salary, a common form of bonus in France.
Previous blockades hit well beyond France which has borders with six countries and ferry and tunnel links with Britain. After previous disputes, London, Brussels and Madrid demanded compensation for lost haulage and export business.
Unions have said they would initially target major motorway junctions, roundabouts and other access roads where they can cause most disruption to the road transport sector, which France relies on for much of its distribution.