I am a bit scratching my head why there is so much discussion about AF making some cuts to its staffing levels in the Province stations. I guess I just missed the beginning of that discussion. Isn't this merely the result of AF mainline having withdrawn almost all of its services from airports other than CDG (and some bits lefgt at ORY) and so not requiring the staff there any longer? They probably had wanted to get rid of staff there since some time, and now, in the context of an overall reduction of staff is a good context (or pretext) to do that overdue reduction? In terms of absolute EUR lost, surely Paris is much bigger drain (it's the "main pipe" in NickB's example), but in relative terms compared to what is really needed for the little AF has left in the Province staffing levels are more "out of whack" in the Province stations, simply because they haven't been reduced yet. So what is the actual issue that we are debating?
About the special situation of MRS and Corsica: let's for the sake of argument distinguish two things, one is the ground crew and the other is flying personnel based there. From what I could gather so far - and I am happy to correct my perspective in the light of more comprehensive data/information than I have so far myself - the reduction of flying personnel is not the issue. The issue seems to be ground staff, where we keep on hearing about more resistence to change from Corsica and Marseille than from, say, Toulouse (that has also lost BdP flights) or Strasbourg or Rennes. The reason why there is more kicking and screaming from staff at MRS/Corsica could be because that is where there was more overstaffing and hence previous attempts to reduce staff, which then lead to kicking and streaming - whilst other stations did not have any reasons for resistence because there was less or no initiative to reduce staffing levels. Or it could be that MRS and Corsica have more vociferous union leaders, or more vociferous staff. I'd love to see more evidence to figure out which reason is more true than the other or what other reasons there could be. It is a fact that Northern union leaders can be just as much opposing change as Southern ones (dockers in Calais, Le Havre or Dunkirque are just as militant as the ones in Marseille I believe), but then again, as mentioned, whenever we hear of AF wanting to change things, we hear stories from Marseille but not from Nantes or Bordeaux. Why is that?