Tens of thousands of civil servants demonstrated around France on Thursday to protest job cuts and press for higher salaries in what the government dismissed as a "labor union ritual." Teachers, hospital workers, firefighters and postal workers were among those who answered the call from seven of eight public servants' union to strike and march. Across the country, some 400,000 people took to the streets, according to the CGT labor union. They jammed streets in Paris, Lyon, Toulouse, Bordeaux and in the southern port city of Marseille. Unions claimed up to 40,000 people marched in Paris, while police put the figure at 17,000.
See "Civil Servants Protest in France", Associated Press, San Francisco Chronicle, January 23, 2008