As transit walkouts snarled traffic and sanitation strikes caused trash to pile up in the streets, the protests were ridiculed abroad. Why must the French, among the best-protected workers in the Western world, make such a racket over two years of work? But for the demonstrators, this missed the point: It is because French workers put up a fight that they are protected. France has always been a vanguard of leftist politics. How it fares says much about where the left may be headed and the headwinds it faces, not just in France but throughout the West.

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Persons: Samira Organizations: Writers Guild of America, United Auto Workers, UPS Teamsters, National Health Service Locations: Teleperformance, France, United States, Britain