Will French strikes pan out?

Yesterday, (Thursday, January 29th, 2008) French folk was on strike to protest the handling of economic crisis of the government. The strike began at 8 PM, Wednesday and is to end at 8 AM, Friday.

As a result of these strikes, transportation, education and health services in the country were disrupted for a day. Ministry of the Interior stated that a million of people demonstrated in “Black Thursday”, whereas the French unions reported the number of the people protested as 2.5 million. Even though demonstrations disrupted the life in some cities for a day, the attendance to the strikes were less than expected; consequently, authorities reported that it was more like “Gray Thursday” than “Black Thursday”.