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UPDATE 4-French trucker talks adjourn as blockades loom

(Releads with talks adjourned)

By David Evans

PARIS, Nov 23 (Reuters) - French truckers and bosses adjourned crisis talks on Saturday without a deal to avert roadblocks throughout the country but agreed to meet again before the action begins on late Sunday.

The prime minister appealed for a compromise after union threats to set up roadblocks, revived memories of painful industrial action in the 1990s, which paralysed road and ports and caused widespread chaos.

An official at trade union Force Ouvriere said talks would resume at 3 p.m. (1400 GMT) on Sunday, hours before a deadline set by the unions for a deal on pay and work conditions.

"We are called back tomorrow for negotiations. If we stop at 10 p.m. (2100 GMT) tomorrow evening without an agreement, action on the roads will start," Gerard Apruzzese of union Force Ouvriere told journalists.

Previous blockades had repercussions beyond national frontiers. France has borders with six countries and ferry and tunnel links with Britain. After a dispute in 1997, London demanded compensation for costs caused to its stranded hauliers.

Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin urged both sides to cut a deal.

"I would like this to end in a constructive dialogue, and above all that there is not a widespread blockade," Raffarin told reporters in Paris.

"I know there are difficulties but we are ready to help."

Despite some progress, union leaders are pessimistic about the prospect of a deal on their demands for a 14 percent rise in monthly pay, an extra month's wages per year and shorter work hours.

The unions appear to have the public behind them. An opinion poll to be published on Sunday in the newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche showed about 75 percent of those polled supported the truckers' right to take industrial action.

Raffarin has said he would not allow labour conflicts to harm to France's fragile economy. Data showed this week the French economy grew by just 0.2 percent in the third quarter, less than economists predicted.

GOVERNMENT NOT IMPLICATED

Raffarin's conservative government, which took power in June with law and order as its top priority, has vowed to ensure the free circulation of goods but has not explicitly said it would deploy riot police to tackle striking truckers.

It is anxious to avoid a repeat of the wave of social unrest that swept France in late 1995 and ultimately led to the fall of a previous conservative government two years later.

But French Transport Minister Gilles de Robien played down any link with 1995. "My impression is that today the government is not implicated, whereas in 1995 the conflict was more political," he said in an interview published in Le Monde on Saturday.

The unions have urged members to be ready to mobilise on Sunday night, when truckers would normally hit the road after weekend restrictions that keep most trucks off the motorways.

Fuelling stations are jammed and were expected to remain so through the weekend as people worry about fuel shortages, though union leaders said they would not blockade oil refineries.

Riot police have already been deployed at the river port of Gennevilliers, north of Paris -- a major supply point for fuel, pharmaceuticals and other goods to the capital.

Most French trucks start out at about 10:30 p.m. (2130 GMT) on Sunday after their weekend break, suggesting that is the time the blockades would start in earnest if talks fail.

TotalFinaElf, Europe's biggest oil refiner, has been replenishing stocks at depots and service stations since Wednesday. It said it had observed a large number of people filling up tanks, especially in the southwest and southeast.