FRANCE: Blockade

Every traveller knows that Paris is four hours from the sea. Fewer travellers know that commercially its traffic comes from the thousands of long black barges with vast rudders and gaily painted strakes that nose slowly up & down the Seine, the Aisne, Marne and Oise bringing goods to the long city quays where hypnotized fishermen sit over their long bamboo poles. For nearly a day last week no barges reached the Paris quays from either Seine or Oise. Fifteen miles down the river where Seine meets Oise at the village of Conflans-Ste-Honorine,...

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