by Graham Tutthill

The unions are to sign the latest agreements over productivity and crewing arrangements with cross-Channel ferry operator SeaFrance.

The company had given the unions until Wednesday January 6 to sign.

The unions had claimed that the latest agreements did not comply with the recovery plan that was signed before Christmas.

There were fears that if the agreements were not signed, the company would return to the commercial court in France to ask for a legal safeguard procedure, placing the future of the company in the hands of the court.

The company's deputy chief executive Vincent Launay said that, without the agreements on crewing and productivity, the redundancy programme and other recovery measures could not have been brought into effect.

A mediator, appointed by the French government, had brokered the recovery plan agreement. It involves 482 redundancies from the 1,580-strong workforce, with 413 of them being offered alternative work with the French national rail operator SNCF which owns SeaFrance.