FOR the past week, France has felt like a country on the verge of civic insurrection. Union blockades of petrol refineries and depots have caused widespread fuel shortages. Some 2,300 petrol stations have either run dry, or are rationing sales at the pump. The government has dipped into its strategic reserves to maintain supplies. Panic has created shortages, as motorists queue to fill up their tanks. The showdown is fast turning into a battle over the survival of both the Socialist government and the reformist French left.
The strikes have touched not only the petrol industry. The Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT), France’s biggest union, which is historically close to the Communist Party, has organised protests and walkouts for the past few months on the railways and Paris metro, as well as French nuclear-energy plants. Riot police have been dispatched to clear illegally blocked fuel depots, most of which have now been freed. Daily images of tear gas and police water cannons, burning tyres and serious street violence—rioters hurled a petrol...Continue reading
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