Air France pilots plan strike over pay conditions

Pilots at Air France have voted in favour of strike action over pay conditions, the head of the SNPL union said on Monday.

SNPL chief Philippe Evain said more than two thirds of the union's pilots with Air France approved the principle of a lengthy strike but said that no date had been set for the walkout.

The strike was in protest against the airline's "obsessive reduction of costs," Evain said. It comes after the pilots union rejected proposals from Air France in talks over productivity in April.

It was not immediately clear whether the timing of the walkout by pilots would coincide with the current wave of public transport protests and oil sector strikes against government plans for labour law reforms.

But the threat of France's flagship airline grounding flights will be a further headache for President Francois Hollande's Socialist government ahead of the June 10 start of the Euro 2016 soccer tournament.

Air France-KLM declined to comment.