My husband and I are (hopefully)leaving for France on Wednesday, arriving Thursday . We are planning on taking the TGV from CDG to Bordeaux same day (already have tickets).

We had planned on spending time in Dordogne, the Loire, and eventually ending up back in Paris (via train).

The protests really didn't concern me too much, but this strike is really starting to worry me.

Strikes in the U.S. have a tendency to go on for a while. Am I over reacting or should I be booking contingecy plans?

No body can accurately answer your question, but this appears to be a little bigger than your average "Greve du jour". This is one reason we have booked a rental car, the railway systems are one of the strikers favorite shutdown targets. These demos are not just in Paris, we followed a large police convoy down the autoroute on the way to monitor the manif. in Romorantin.

The strike is only Tuesday (except SNCF which always overlaps a trifle due to working shifts) -- unless there is some big incident at today's demonstrations, which could set off a bigger movement. For example, if a metro worker were to be beaten unconscious for some reason by either the police or the demonstrators, there would almost certainly be no metro tomorrow.

Political strikes are generally one-day affairs; it is strikes for salary or working conditions that can last a long time.

There seems to be a common misunderstanding among our American friends about strike habits on either side of the Atlantic. Like it or not, strikes are part of the French "landscape", so, like everything else, they are organised: the unions have to give notice, for such a day, ditto for the accompanying demonstration(s), with a set itinerary and police protection. Sometimes, very rarely, strikes are open -ended ("illimitées&quot, but then it becomes their official status! So, as Kérouac says, tomorrow everything should be back to normal.

I'm also confused about the length of this. A BBC story today states the strike runs until 0200 Friday. We also are flying to Paris tomorrow evening, but do have a rental car reserved for our trip to Brittany.

Stike ends today with the exception of the SNCF which ends tmo morning at 8 am meaning that some disruptions will continue tmo morning on the RER and trains.

I read using my very limited french, that the students are saying that if things don't change as a result of today's demonstration they will be calling for another one on April 4th. Anyone out there, in Paris particularly, heard this? We leave on the 30th and return on the 5th.

Students don't make that decision; unions do. In any case, today's strike didn't bring anything to a stop, although it made public transport more crowded.

I don't think I've ever been in France when a strike lasted longer than a day. I really like that method in comparison to the US where they just go on strike forever, and they always announce it in France and the exact times.

I always read the French Yahoo current events section (A la une) for strike info, which is updated every few hours, and I didn't see anything in there about April 4th, but I don't see why students can't strike when they want without the unions deciding. Well, I don't think they really "strike", that is the wrong term, the students may have protests. Yeah, the unions have to decide when strikes occur.

I also read the French strike website itself ( www.greves.org ), which is all strikes, all the time, but didn't read anything like that on there but they don't have as much general news as news media, it's more specific strike info. They have a horoscope section with different horoscopes for strikers and nonstrikers, to tell you how things will go, very nice.

I think one thing did shut down other than transport mainly being affected (which is usual), no newspapers were delivered to the kiosques today. I really wouldn't like that.

If the students do another major demonstration, it would be before April 8th, I imagine, as they go on vacation then, but they've been doing that about every day anyway, so I don't see what they can do without the unions.

The students have been marching every Tuesday for a month.