Today looks like being le mardi noir for the French government. The transport strike continues, though support is gradually eroding. Still causing plenty of chaos, mainly in Paris, though even in Lyon, where the only transport not running normally is mainline trains, 70km of traffic jams were reported yesterday.
And now 5 million public sector workers have been called out on strike against low pouvoir d'achat (purchasing power, the euphemism that tends to get used here for pay), poor working conditions and job cuts. That means teachers, hospital, postal, tax office and various other workers. It's estimated that half of all primary schools are closed today.
Then there's the university students' protest, which has now spread to a handful of secondary schools, and there are few national newspapers in the kiosks today because of a strike amongst distribution workers.
One surprising thing amongst all this had been the surprising and deafening silence from Monsieur le Président. Sarko is never out of the headlines for long though, and there has apparently a bit of noise on the net in the last day or two, following a report which alleged that he'd indulged in a 20 minute anti-Muslim diatribe to the Irish Prime Minister a couple of weeks ago. This after a speech he made in Senegal a month or two ago, questioning whether "l'homme africain" had made enough of a mark on history...
