Two Suspended Paris Airport Workers Win Back Security Clearance

Two suspended workers at the main Paris airport have won their jobs back after being swept up in a dragnet aimed at protecting the airport from Islamic terrorism, a lawyer said Wednesday.

Regional authorities have stripped 72 workers at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport of security badges and jobs over the past 18 months for security reasons. The workers were primarily Muslim.

Several insist on their innocence and say they are targets of discrimination, and 11 are taking their case to court.

A hearing is scheduled for Friday for eight of them - but two have now won their badges back and can return to work, lawyer Georges Holleaux said Wednesday.

The six others are still expected to push their case at the court hearings in Cergy-Pontoise northwest of Paris on Friday. They want the court to retract the suspensions, which were ordered by authorities of the Seine-Saint-Denis region, where the airport is located.

Also Friday, a judge in another court, in suburban Bobigny, is to rule on demands by the workers' lawyers for copies of documents used to justify their suspensions.

Authorities insist on the need to minimize risk at Charles de Gaulle, where some 90,000 people are employed. Security officials have said a majority of those whose badges were rescinded were linked to Islamist circles.

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