Images of banner-waving "workers" are hardly new in France: every year the return to work brings with it fresh protests and intimations of a troubled winter.
Last week, however, the number of angry protesters stomping through the major cities was truly impressive – somewhere between 1.2 million (police figures) and 2.7 million (union estimates). In Paris, the sea of manifestants was so deep and wide that protesters were obliged to part into parallel cortèges just to get through the capital. British viewers watching the chanting hordes could be forgiven for thinking that a 21st-century French Revolution was just around the corner.
