Heard on Radio France Info tonight that lots of actions sociales are in the works for early October. Sounds like a good time not to visit the Louvre, take Air France, or receive an important package in the mail. 
François Hollande, Secretary of the Socialist Party , was heard at length demanding for the government to make concessions on employment or else.
There is a new woman head of the big employers' association MEDEF , Laurence Parisot, 
but you won't be hearing her rambling on during nightly newscasts. Why? Because les chefs d'entreprises are the bad guys. Didn't you listen to Mr Hollande?
It's a funny thing that the word "liberal" has become a hissing and a byword in normal discourse in both the U.S. and in France, when the words have practically opposite meanings in the two countries. In France, libéralisme means the wish for businesses to march over the courageous spirit of the working class to try to take away the acquis sociaux, make everyone learn English and pave over French farmland for McDonalds and genetically modified corn. In the U.S., liberals are Hollywooders and New Yorkers who don't believe in God, want to make poor white waitresses pay for ghetto welfare moms, and are wimpish on terrorism.
It reminds me of this cartoon that ran in a British paper right before the French vote on the European Union constitution in May. Both sides were saying, "We can protect you against le libéralisme anglosaxon!"
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