Well, being a french resident as well, i must say that this country has lots to learn about preventing rather than curing a conflict. It often ends up making the symptoms disappar, but the illness is still lurking...What is most objectionable is this hijacking of one of the most important feature of our societies: mobility. Being an environmentalist by trade, the environmental crisis is not due to mobility. it is due to the way it is glorified and thought as a necessity. Power games strongly depend on this. The trucker strikes in Europe are indeed a power game. Unions should think twice when they show this aspect of their action. They should remember that they are a negoviation intance, not a political party...

In the US of A, I seem to remember that trucker unions (and others) are at the origin of the train decline. But this might be a historical mistake and i am sure that the car making lobby and the gas companies are not totally innocent in that decline.

Anyway, one question: is there somewhere in the mudcat universe, somebody who knows (about) a folk song that refers to the truckers and their "good roadly manners"? I heard (about) trains, horse carts of many kinds, long walks (how do you call pilgrimage?) in francophone, anglophone and hispanophone traditions, but truckers seem to be limited to "country" music...

Sorry about the few barbarisms included in this message...