Vive La Résistance!

The big news in France this week is, of course, the nationwide strikes which have been going on since Tuesday, as part of an ongoing protest against President Sarkozy’s pension and various other unpopular fiscal reforms, including the extension of the retirement age for French workers.

Today's manfestations were held down the road at Bastille – that well-known site of civil unrest in Paris – though my only contact with the mass discontent was encountering a group of fresh-faced high-school students, setting out en masse in good voice and high-spirits from outside the G20 supermarket, as I did my Saturday grocery shopping.

The British Press – a little too gleefully, if you ask me – have been proclaiming that Charles de Gaulle airport has only enough fuel to last a few more days, due to strikes at oil refineries and a blockade of the fuel pipelines.

Great news for someone like me who has a little bit of traveling to do in the next 10 days or so – what fun!

Anyway, in solidarity with all the demonstrators out there – exercising their Gallic birthright, with their usual savoir faire – I’ve decided to dedicate today’s post to the subject of crowds and featuring some of the crowd scenes I’ve edited out of my the blog pages to date.

In the big city – as on a Paris Protest - you can rest assured that you are never alone!