FrenchDuck UK - Latest

If you are planning to visit France in the next week or so, be prepared for some disruption, especially if using public transport and visiting Paris. As reported in the Independent (12 Nov 2007):-

France faces eight days of social convulsion starting tomorrow with strikes by railway and Metro workers, students, teachers, power workers, civil servants, opera and theatre staff and even magistrates. The protests - especially an indefinite strike by railway workers from tomorrow night - will provide the greatest test so far of the reforming nerve and zeal of President Nicolas Sarkozy.

This is the showdown between the new President and the trade unions which has been inevitable, and which may prove crucial for determining how strike-prone the country may be this winter.

This all seeems rather perverse in the week that the new St Pancras Eurostar connection opens with faster journey times to Lille, Paris and Brussels.