Wednesday November 13, 2007
Open-ended strike
From Tuesday evening, the nation's rail network will grind to a halt as transport workers protest at plans to end their special retirement perks, which allow some staff like train drivers to retire on full pensions at 50.
The strike is their second in a month and this time it is open-ended.
Hot on their heels, Paris Metro workers have called a day of action on Wednesday, which militant unions hope to extend.
The action will be supported by gas and electricity workers, while protests by teachers and students are also planned next week, with the students threatening to block university campuses and train stations.
Plans to overhaul the judicial service and to shut some courthouses have prompted magistrates to strike too - just after a massive one-day strike planned by civil servants on 20 November.
Stubbornly tenacious
Used to protesting on the streets rather than via parliament, the French can be stubbornly tenacious when it comes to striking.
In 1995, three continual weeks of strikes by public and transport workers against planned reforms brought France to its knees and forced the government to back off.
[Mr Sarkozy] will not be trapped in confrontation on the street where it's clear that one or the other side is sure to lose in the end 
Mr Sarkozy, though, is made of stronger stuff. So, will he choose to fight till the last and appropriate that famous adage of Margaret Thatcher?
"To those waiting...[for] the U-turn, I have only one thing to say: You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning!" she said in a defiant speech at the Conservative Party conference in 1980.
He is unlikely to hold out though, according to the economist, Xavier Timbeau.
"Sarkozy knows that a hard conflict will only strengthen the opposition," he says.
"He will not be trapped in confrontation on the street where it's clear that one or the other side is sure to lose in the end."
"Even if he won a victory, he knows he'd have to pay for it very dearly sooner or later. What he wants is negotiation."
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