09.25.00 A couple of years ago, it was the truckers, the airline pilots, the baggage handlers, the subway staff, and the train conductors. Strikes, demonstrations, and walkouts are a recurring fact of life in France.
Farmers routinely dump tons of rotting vegetables on the roads and trash government offices.
Train drivers regularly leave millions of commuters stranded. Truckers barricade motorways, blockade ports, and spark frenzied bouts of panic buying. Even the police are partial to the occasional work stoppage. It does not much matter that the French state can't be held responsible for the sudden, massive hike in world oil prices that prompted the current round of strikes. Or, for that matter, that it's not to blame for the squeeze on truckers' profits prompted by merger mania among Europe's leading supermarket chains.