The French protests, which have been spearheaded by fishermen, are essentially directed at their own government. British tourists and lorry drivers stranded at Channel ports are just incidental victims. The fishermen are demanding state aid to compensate for a sharp rise in diesel prices, which they say has hit their earnings badly.
Fishing is less and less financially worthwhile.
Fisherman Ghislain Baud Correspondents say the demonstrations are in line with a French tradition of dramatising strike demands by causing widespread disruption, tactics generally accepted as legitimate by the French public. The tradition has been bolstered by the French Government's record of accepting strikers' demands. Over the past decade the government has bowed to protests by truck drivers, civil servants, train drivers and a number of other trades. It is not entirely clear why it is the fishermen who had led this protest, rather than other diesel users such as truck drivers, but correspondents say it appears to be because the fishermen are self-employed and so have to pay the higher prices themselves. The fishing industry is fed up.