Two million French government employees walked off their jobs last week in a 24-hour strike that left the nation in a state of near paralysis. Trains stopped, telephones went dead, gas and electricity flickered. State banks stopped payments, mail went undelivered, state-employed gravediggers refused to bury the dead.
In all the bigger cities, garbage piled high in the streets. Paris had neither subways nor bus lines, and at its railroad terminals, thousands of tourists, including many Americans, sat on their suitcases and fumed. "I'm sick to death of these unstable countries," said an angry Englishwoman. "From now on I will...
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