The strike-weary French

The newspaper observes in a leading article that few French people followed the call by several unions to demonstrate against Nicolas Sarkozy's reforms: "What has become of the heated spring days of yesteryear? Where are the mass strikes that left travellers waiting in overcrowded stations? Many had warned that this June would be highly perilous, the first test for Nicolas Sarkozy and his reforms. But it must be said that the 'action day' staged by the CTT-CFDT did not see much action at all. ... The most memorable thing about the day was that only seven percent of rail workers and six percent of postal workers ... followed the call to strike. That is astonishingly low. Clearly, Nicolas Sarkozy has won an important psychological victory. He has shown that France is not the unreformable country it was 30 years ago."

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