FRANCE: PROTESTS

donga.com: Protests Bring France to Standstill

A general strike took more than half of metros and trains in Paris out of service yesterday, causing huge rush hour traffic jams. Only two-thirds of France’s TGV high-speed trains were operational as well.
With many universities and high schools in France already affected by the unrest, teachers also joined Tuesday’s demonstration, along with opposition groups including France’s Socialist and Communist parties.
Students announced that following Tuesday’s strikes and demonstrations by unions and student organizations, they would block main streets and train stations on March 30.

Independent: 'Three million' march against French law

In the biggest anti-government protests for at least a decade, more than 200,000 people marched through the streets of Paris to protest against controversial new employment contracts for the young.
Union leaders claimed that yesterday's demonstrations throughout France attracted more than three million people, which would make them the largest protests for almost half a century.
Scattered violence erupted on the edges of the Paris march. There were also running battles at the end in the Place de la République between police and multi-racial gangs of teenagers from deprived suburbs. But police and union security teams - and heavy downpours of rain - prevented the kind of widespread robberies, beatings and pitched battles seen at the end of a march last Thursday.