French industrial relations France has recently come to gain a reputation for a large number of strikes and blockades which can flare-up without notice. The country has a less regulated system for industrial relations, with workers having greater rights to strike, than their British counterparts. Every worker in France has the right to strike, as was guaranteed by the country's 1945 constitution. In Britain, things are different. Mass picketing and sympathy strikes aimed at preventing people not involved in the dispute from going about their business are banned.
Courts are able to sequester union funds if they step outside the law.
Strikes aimed at changing government policy are also illegal, even when they bear pretty directly on members concerned, such as rail workers threatening to strike against the proposed privatisation of the railways. This led to accusations from Britons held up in the summer's protests that the French police are ineffective. Despite the different rules over striking in France, the British government has questioned the legality of such actions, under EU law. So it is not completely disorganised. It is not legal to blockade a highway in France any more than in Britain but the question is how you resolve a question without any violence.