re-posted from NPR
Iowa High Court Strikes Down Ban on Gay Marriage, 04/02/09
Iowa's Supreme Court struck down the state's ban on gay marriage, saying the provision violates the constitutional rights of gay and lesbian couples.
The unanimous ruling issued Friday would make Iowa the third state where gay marriage is legal. The court's decision upholds a 2007 Polk County District Court judge's ruling.
The 2007 ruling prompted nearly two dozen people to apply for marriage licenses in Polk County, Iowa's most populous county and home to Des Moines. Only one couple managed to get married before the decision was stayed the next day.
The case stems from a 2005 lawsuit filed by Lambda Legal, a New York-based gay rights organization. The group filed a lawsuit on behalf of six gay and lesbian Iowa couples who were denied marriage licenses.
Gay rights supporter and former state lawmaker Ed Fallon told NPR that the ruling is consistent with Iowa's history.
"Iowa has always been on the cutting edge of civil rights," Fallon said, "whether it's regarding desegregation of schools or the rights of African-Americans to be full citizens."
"This is huge. And I think it's a testament to the fairness and sense of decency that Iowans have," he said.
The decision makes Iowa the first state in the Midwest and the third in the nation to legalize gay marriage. Massachusetts and Connecticut permit same-sex marriage; California did briefly before voters passed a ban in November.
During oral arguments before the Supreme Court in December, Des Moines lawyer Dennis Johnson argued Iowa's ban violated his clients' due process and equal protection rights.
Roger J. Kuhle, an assistant Polk County attorney, argued that the lower court's ruling for the plaintiffs violates the separation of powers and that the issue should be left to the Legislature.
During oral arguments, Chief Justice Marsha Ternus explained that the high court would determine whether the district court erred by finding that the same-sex marriage ban violated the state constitution and whether it erred by not allowing the county's expert witness testimony.
The timing of the decision could be awkward for state lawmakers who are on track to end the legislative session in coming weeks.
Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal (D-Council Bluffs) told reporters that it's "exceedingly unlikely" the Legislature would deal with the gay marriage issue this year, regardless of the court's ruling.
"This is the final step in a lengthy legal proceeding," said Gronstal. "We're going to wait and see that decision and review it before we take any action."
02 April 2009
[Los Angeles] Cul-de-sac Communes
re-posted from NPR: All Things Considered
A Social Experiment: Communes In Cul-De-Sacs
by Jennifer Sharpe, 04/02/09
Ever since my next-door neighbor sent me hate mail, threatening to sue if I didn't cut down my eucalyptus tree, I've been having paranoid fantasies about how badly we'd do together in an apocalypse.
Stranded on a residential street in Santa Monica, Calif., where the neighbors hardly ever interact with each other, I realized we might all die as casualties of our own self absorption.
So when I heard about a social experiment urging people in Los Angeles cul-de-sacs to start communes together, I had to see if this strange suburban mutation could possibly survive.
So architect and social designer Stephanie Smith, who runs the company Ecoshack, took me to the first official cul-de-sac commune potluck at the end of January on a newly developed bluff in Topanga Canyon, three months after she came up with the idea.
"We're finally here," Smith said.
Weeks earlier, Smith sat in her office explaining that she launched her project "Wanna Start A Commune?" after having an epiphany in the first moments of the economy's collapse.
"It couldn't possibly be that I have to keep having to buy in order to be green," Smith said. "I have to buy a Prius. I have to buy a fluorescent light bulb. I have to buy a solar array. And I just frankly just couldn't afford to be green — and that scared me."
Coming together to share resources is the basic premise of Smith's vision for the cul-de-sac commune. Hoping to learn what kinds of tools she should design to help facilitate sharing, Smith listened to Scott Vineberg, who lives in the commune, and his progressive-thinking neighbors as they brainstormed ways to go off the grid together, raise chickens and manage their stress levels.
"I'd like a communal massage, get somebody who comes up, you get a reduced rate, it's all outside... Ahh, that would be amazing, we should do that!" says commune member Helena Kriel.
The stay-at-home convenience of the cul-de-sac commune is, as Smith sees it, a solution to the biggest design flaw of its predecessors.
"In the past, utopian communities have often failed because people who started them have really insisted that the best way is to leave your old community, leave society, leave culture and start over, and it's a valid idea in many cases, but, it also leads to failure," she said. "So what we're interested in doing is make them effective as part of a culture, not a counterculture this time."
By some strange coincidence, the very spot where this first cul-de-sac commune gathering was taking place is exactly where Topanga Canyon's biggest 1970s commune once lived.
And if there's anyone who disagrees with Smith's strategy, it's that commune's founder, Sridhar Silberfein, whose divorce from society has gotten only deeper as his commitment to communal living has grown.
"I think there are going to be more and more people coming into communes — that's really where the future's going to be now," Silberfein says. "Because the economy is really breaking itself down, the government is breaking down, all the systems are breaking down. And all that's going to be left is going to be small communities living together and sharing the land."
I asked him what he imagines will happen to Los Angeles, for example.
"I think big cities are finished," he said. "That's why I left."
I'd driven two and a half hours outside Los Angeles to meet Silberfein, who lives in Yucca Valley, where he works as a real estate agent and is starting a new — as he now calls it — "intentional community," on 85 acres of high desert, where he plans to drill wells and build enormous greenhouses.
But as I looked out over the rocky expanse, I felt a premature nostalgia for civilization, and, despite Silberfein's pessimism, drove back to Los Angeles excited to see if the cul-de-sac communes were catching on.
"Every single neighborhood in America and around the world is a commune," Ecoshack's Smith says. "And every single apartment building is, and every office building is, and every single thing is built new using guidelines around sharing resources. Nothing less than that."
Smith's vision continues to expand. Within a month of that first potluck, at the end of February, cul-de-sac communes were bubbling up around the city, including one down in Santa Monica's Rustic Canyon, a short walk from my house. So perhaps it's just a matter of time before even my block turns, and my hostile tree-hating neighbor comes knocking on my front door.
More information at: www.wannastartacommune.com
01 April 2009
[U.S.] Housing First study
re-posted from NPR.com All Things Considered
For Homeless, A Home May Be the Best Rehab
by Joseph Shapiro, 03/31/09
All Things Considered, March 31, 2009 · Richard Corbett has been homeless for long periods of time. He has struggled with depression and alcoholism. But he says he doesn't drink very often anymore and only moderately when he does. When he lived on the scary streets and in shelters, he says, he would drink just to fall asleep.
The difference, Corbett says, is that now he has a permanent place to live and that makes him feel safe. He says he no longer has "to worry about being hit in the night with a brick upside the head and being robbed."
Corbett, 61, lives in a sparse, two-room apartment with high, white ceilings in a solid row house in Washington, D.C. Staff at Pathways to Housing found him in a shelter and moved him into this building and then got him counseling, even though he was still drinking heavily at the time. That's a new way of trying to help the chronically homeless. It's a philosophy called "Housing First."
The traditional way to help chronically homeless people has been to get them into a temporary shelter where they can work on getting sober or dealing with a psychiatric illness. Only once that hard work is done are they considered ready for permanent housing.
Housing First turns all that upside down. It finds the permanent place to live first. It doesn't matter if the homeless person is still drinking or using drugs, because having a home is considered therapeutic by itself. Case workers are then around to help the person address the problems that caused him or her to be homeless.
Now a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association offers new support to the Housing First approach that helped Richard Corbett.
Mary Larimer, a clinical psychologist at the University of Washington, chose to study a 75-unit apartment building for homeless people in Seattle because it used a Housing First approach — and because it had created controversy.
"The controversy is that there are a number of individuals who feel that it's important to use housing as a carrot," Larimer says. "And that by housing people who are not yet ready or able to stop their addictive behaviors and allowing them to continue to drink alcohol … that we would be reducing their chances of sobriety or in some ways would be enabling them."
Larimer and her co-researchers studied the people who lived at a building called 1811 Eastlake. It takes on some of the hardest homeless people to help: Those constantly on the streets and drunk. The research found that their drinking dropped steadily over the first year they had their own apartments, from, on average, about 16 drinks a day to about 11.
That's still a lot of alcohol. But even a small drop made a big difference. The study tracked down records of the time they spent in detox, in hospitals and jail. The researchers also compared how much government spent on them compared with those still living on the streets. Larimer found the cost savings were enormous: about $2,500 less per person per month.
"Ultimately abstinence is the safest goal and the desirable goal," she says. "I also think that there are people who are not in a position to obtain abstinence immediately. And that certainly people's chances of becoming abstinent are a lot better when they are in a warm, safe environment and they have lots of caring people and services available to them immediately."
Back at his home, Corbett points out the pots in the front yard where he and his landlord are getting ready to plant flowers. "I'm in a much better place than before I got this place," he says. "It's a feeling of respect and dignity that I didn't have before."
Most programs for homeless people don't use a Housing First model. But it's an approach that has spread in recent years to more than a dozen major U.S. cities.
For Homeless, A Home May Be the Best Rehab
by Joseph Shapiro, 03/31/09
All Things Considered, March 31, 2009 · Richard Corbett has been homeless for long periods of time. He has struggled with depression and alcoholism. But he says he doesn't drink very often anymore and only moderately when he does. When he lived on the scary streets and in shelters, he says, he would drink just to fall asleep.
The difference, Corbett says, is that now he has a permanent place to live and that makes him feel safe. He says he no longer has "to worry about being hit in the night with a brick upside the head and being robbed."
Corbett, 61, lives in a sparse, two-room apartment with high, white ceilings in a solid row house in Washington, D.C. Staff at Pathways to Housing found him in a shelter and moved him into this building and then got him counseling, even though he was still drinking heavily at the time. That's a new way of trying to help the chronically homeless. It's a philosophy called "Housing First."
The traditional way to help chronically homeless people has been to get them into a temporary shelter where they can work on getting sober or dealing with a psychiatric illness. Only once that hard work is done are they considered ready for permanent housing.
Housing First turns all that upside down. It finds the permanent place to live first. It doesn't matter if the homeless person is still drinking or using drugs, because having a home is considered therapeutic by itself. Case workers are then around to help the person address the problems that caused him or her to be homeless.
Now a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association offers new support to the Housing First approach that helped Richard Corbett.
Mary Larimer, a clinical psychologist at the University of Washington, chose to study a 75-unit apartment building for homeless people in Seattle because it used a Housing First approach — and because it had created controversy.
"The controversy is that there are a number of individuals who feel that it's important to use housing as a carrot," Larimer says. "And that by housing people who are not yet ready or able to stop their addictive behaviors and allowing them to continue to drink alcohol … that we would be reducing their chances of sobriety or in some ways would be enabling them."
Larimer and her co-researchers studied the people who lived at a building called 1811 Eastlake. It takes on some of the hardest homeless people to help: Those constantly on the streets and drunk. The research found that their drinking dropped steadily over the first year they had their own apartments, from, on average, about 16 drinks a day to about 11.
That's still a lot of alcohol. But even a small drop made a big difference. The study tracked down records of the time they spent in detox, in hospitals and jail. The researchers also compared how much government spent on them compared with those still living on the streets. Larimer found the cost savings were enormous: about $2,500 less per person per month.
"Ultimately abstinence is the safest goal and the desirable goal," she says. "I also think that there are people who are not in a position to obtain abstinence immediately. And that certainly people's chances of becoming abstinent are a lot better when they are in a warm, safe environment and they have lots of caring people and services available to them immediately."
Back at his home, Corbett points out the pots in the front yard where he and his landlord are getting ready to plant flowers. "I'm in a much better place than before I got this place," he says. "It's a feeling of respect and dignity that I didn't have before."
Most programs for homeless people don't use a Housing First model. But it's an approach that has spread in recent years to more than a dozen major U.S. cities.
[Britain] Happy Financial Fool's Day
re-posted from NPR.org
G-20 Protesters Jam London, Target Banks
by The Associated Press, April 1, 2009
Thousands of G-20 protesters jammed downtown London on Wednesday and some tried to storm the Bank of England, pelting police with eggs and fruit and rocking the barricades designed to control them.
Demonstrators shouted "Abolish Money!" and clogged streets in the financial district known as "The City" even as Prime Minister Gordon Brown and President Barack Obama held a news conference elsewhere in the British capital.
Protesters had branded the day "Financial Fool's Day" ahead of Thursday's summit of world leaders who are gathering in hopes of resolving the global financial crisis that has lashed nations and workers worldwide.
"Every job I apply for there's already 150 people who have also applied," said protester Nathan Dean, 35, who lost his information technology job three weeks ago. "I have had to sign on to the dole (welfare) for the first time in my life. You end up having to pay your mortgage on your credit card and you fall into debt twice over."
Demonstrators hoisted effigies of the "four horsemen of the apocalypse," representing war, climate chaos, financial crimes and homelessness.
"The greed that is driving people is tearing us apart," said Steve Lamont, 45, flanked by his family and protesters who were banging on bells, playing drums and blowing whistles.
At least eight people were reportedly arrested for having police uniforms. One police officer lost his helmet and demonstrators tossed it around like a trophy and chanted slogans.
Helicopters hovered above the protests and some buildings were boarded up in case the protests turned ugly. Many banks had extra security and hundreds of police officers lined the streets.
Fearing they would be targeted by protesters, some bankers swapped their pinstripe suits for casual wear and others stayed home. Bolder financial workers leaned out their office windows Wednesday, taunting demonstrators and waving 10 pound notes at them.
Especially in Britain, bankers have been lambasted as being greedy and blamed for the recession that is making jobless ranks soar.
"It seems like everything is in a mess," said protester Steve Johnson, 49, an unemployed construction worker. "You get bankers getting massive bonuses, and the MPs (British lawmakers) are lining their own pockets."
Musician and political activist Billy Bragg said the time was now to make a difference.
"It's better than sitting down shouting at the television at these bankers," he said. "We cannot go back to the way things were before to the million-dollar bonus culture."
G-20 Protesters Jam London, Target Banks
by The Associated Press, April 1, 2009
Thousands of G-20 protesters jammed downtown London on Wednesday and some tried to storm the Bank of England, pelting police with eggs and fruit and rocking the barricades designed to control them.
Demonstrators shouted "Abolish Money!" and clogged streets in the financial district known as "The City" even as Prime Minister Gordon Brown and President Barack Obama held a news conference elsewhere in the British capital.
Protesters had branded the day "Financial Fool's Day" ahead of Thursday's summit of world leaders who are gathering in hopes of resolving the global financial crisis that has lashed nations and workers worldwide.
"Every job I apply for there's already 150 people who have also applied," said protester Nathan Dean, 35, who lost his information technology job three weeks ago. "I have had to sign on to the dole (welfare) for the first time in my life. You end up having to pay your mortgage on your credit card and you fall into debt twice over."
Demonstrators hoisted effigies of the "four horsemen of the apocalypse," representing war, climate chaos, financial crimes and homelessness.
"The greed that is driving people is tearing us apart," said Steve Lamont, 45, flanked by his family and protesters who were banging on bells, playing drums and blowing whistles.
At least eight people were reportedly arrested for having police uniforms. One police officer lost his helmet and demonstrators tossed it around like a trophy and chanted slogans.
Helicopters hovered above the protests and some buildings were boarded up in case the protests turned ugly. Many banks had extra security and hundreds of police officers lined the streets.
Fearing they would be targeted by protesters, some bankers swapped their pinstripe suits for casual wear and others stayed home. Bolder financial workers leaned out their office windows Wednesday, taunting demonstrators and waving 10 pound notes at them.
Especially in Britain, bankers have been lambasted as being greedy and blamed for the recession that is making jobless ranks soar.
"It seems like everything is in a mess," said protester Steve Johnson, 49, an unemployed construction worker. "You get bankers getting massive bonuses, and the MPs (British lawmakers) are lining their own pockets."
Musician and political activist Billy Bragg said the time was now to make a difference.
"It's better than sitting down shouting at the television at these bankers," he said. "We cannot go back to the way things were before to the million-dollar bonus culture."
[India] Pink Sari Gang
suggested by Gaurav, re-posted from BittenandBound.com Pink Sari Gang: Gulabi Gang, by Andrea 11/24/08
The Pink Sari Gang, or Gulabi (pink) Gang, is a group of several hundred vigilante women in India, committed to protecting women against social malpractice, corrupt administrators, and abusive husbands.
A revolutionary movement in India’s northern Uttar Pradesh state’s Banda area, the Gulabi Gang is striking fear in the hearts of wrongdoers and earning the grudging respect of officials.
Leader Sampat Pal Devi, wife of an ice cream vendor, mother of five children, and a former government health worker, says, “we are not a gang in the usual sense of the term. We are a gang for justice.”
Two years after giving themselves a name and uniform, the women in the Pink Sari Gang have thrashed men who have abandoned or beaten their wives and unearthed corruption in the distribution of grain to the poor.
Shunning political parties and NGOs, because “they are always looking for kickbacks when they offer to fund us,” Sampat Pal Devi says, “Nobody comes to our help in these parts. The officials and the police are corrupt and anti-poor. So sometimes we have to take the law in our hands. At other times, we prefer to shame the wrongdoers.”
According to 25-year-old gang member Aarti Devi, “Men used to think the law didn’t apply to them but we are forcing a huge change.”
See this link for more photos and video: http://www.bittenandbound.com/2008/11/24/pink-sari-gang-gulabi-gang-photos-and-video/
[Oakland] Cesar Chavez Day prompts march for students rights
re-posted from Oakland Tribune
Cesar Chavez Day prompts march for student rights in Oakland
By Sean Maher, 03/30/2009
Oakland — Honoring the memory of civil rights leader Cesar Chavez, about 30 students and other activists marched down International Boulevard today demanding rights for immigrant students.
"The families of undocumented students pay taxes and make an enormous contribution to our nation's economy and prosperity, yet their sons and daughters face the same kind of discrimination that young black students experienced in the old Jim Crow south," read a statement from By Any Means Necessary, the organization that held the march.
The Federal DREAM Act, which would give those students access to financial aid, was reintroduced last week, as was a similar state bill in California. Both have gone through a variety of forms and names and stirred controversy for several years.
The group started at International Boulevard and 98th Avenue and marched in the direction of downtown. Oakland police monitored the march as a precautionary measure.
A truck drove slowly down the right-hand lane, the marchers following and chanting, "Join the march! Join the fight! Let's stand up for immigrants' rights!"
Tuesday is Cesar Chavez Day, which honors the civil rights leader's birthday. Many schools throughout the state, though not all of them, will be closed in recognition.
Cesar Chavez Day prompts march for student rights in Oakland
By Sean Maher, 03/30/2009
Oakland — Honoring the memory of civil rights leader Cesar Chavez, about 30 students and other activists marched down International Boulevard today demanding rights for immigrant students.
"The families of undocumented students pay taxes and make an enormous contribution to our nation's economy and prosperity, yet their sons and daughters face the same kind of discrimination that young black students experienced in the old Jim Crow south," read a statement from By Any Means Necessary, the organization that held the march.
The Federal DREAM Act, which would give those students access to financial aid, was reintroduced last week, as was a similar state bill in California. Both have gone through a variety of forms and names and stirred controversy for several years.
The group started at International Boulevard and 98th Avenue and marched in the direction of downtown. Oakland police monitored the march as a precautionary measure.
A truck drove slowly down the right-hand lane, the marchers following and chanting, "Join the march! Join the fight! Let's stand up for immigrants' rights!"
Tuesday is Cesar Chavez Day, which honors the civil rights leader's birthday. Many schools throughout the state, though not all of them, will be closed in recognition.
19 March 2009
[France] Workers Protest Across France
suggested by Dan, re-posted from NYT
WORKERS PROTEST ACROSS FRANCE
By MATTHEW SALTMARSH and DAVID JOLLY
March 19, 2009
PARIS — Rail service, airports, utilities and the public sector were hit Thursday by work stoppages, the second major strike in two months, as French unions mobilized against the government’s response to the global economic crisis.
Two-thirds of the country’s high-speed TGV trains were canceled. Air France said most of its flights were operating normally from Roissy Charles de Gaulle International Airport, while about one-third of its flights from Orly Airport had been canceled. Traffic on the Paris Métro and bus networks were close to normal, according to transit officials, but suburban rail line service was disrupted.
In a joint statement, the country’s largest unions said that President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government “had categorically refused to increase the statutory minimum wage, to alter his policies in the field of public service employment,” and that the official response to the crisis was wholly inadequate.
They called on the government to safeguard jobs, to fight against labor insecurity and to protect workers’ purchasing power.
More than 200 demonstrations were expected across France, according to unions. There was no initial comment from the government about the extent of the action.
The country faces mounting dissatisfaction amid job cuts. Mirroring trends in other European countries, the number of job seekers in France rose in January by 90,200, the highest increase on record, and the fourth-quarter unemployment rate rose to 8.2 percent.
The tire maker Continental is closing a plant in the Oise region which employs 1,120 people. Total, the largest French energy company, announced last week that it planned to shed some 250 jobs in the French refining sector as it cuts capacity at Gonfreville in the northwest of the country.
Faced with expectations that the French economy will contract by nearly 2 percent this year, Mr. Sarkozy announced a $35 billion stimulus plan in December.
But he has held back from announcing further measures, apart from support packages for the auto industry and banks. He recently criticized Britain for seeking to bolster consumption by cutting the value added tax.
Unions want more tax breaks and the opposition Socialist Party has called for a consumption-driven approach to restarting growth.
A poll conducted this week for the magazine Paris Match by IFOP found that 78 percent of the French support the strikers, the highest rate in a decade.
But among passengers waiting for a train to Paris at a station about 15 miles west of the capital, it was hard to find such support. “France is a bit like a sinking boat, and these strikers are just adding more holes,” said Maurice Bataille, 34.
Unsurprisingly, French business leaders expressed frustration at the strike. “It’s a big sign that people don’t know where they are; they don’t know what they want,” Christophe de Margerie, the chief executive of Total, said Wednesday. “They are lost.”
He defended the decision to cut refining jobs as something that “should have been done one or two years ago” and said that the company would keep investing and adding jobs in other areas. Union officials said production had stopped Thursday at six Total refineries, but the company said the impact on production was “limited,” according to Reuters.
Two major demonstrations were planned for central Paris later Thursday in fine spring weather. On Jan. 29, more than a million marched in cities across the country, and the following day, Mr. Sarkozy made some concessions to worker demands.
WORKERS PROTEST ACROSS FRANCE
By MATTHEW SALTMARSH and DAVID JOLLY
March 19, 2009
PARIS — Rail service, airports, utilities and the public sector were hit Thursday by work stoppages, the second major strike in two months, as French unions mobilized against the government’s response to the global economic crisis.
Two-thirds of the country’s high-speed TGV trains were canceled. Air France said most of its flights were operating normally from Roissy Charles de Gaulle International Airport, while about one-third of its flights from Orly Airport had been canceled. Traffic on the Paris Métro and bus networks were close to normal, according to transit officials, but suburban rail line service was disrupted.
In a joint statement, the country’s largest unions said that President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government “had categorically refused to increase the statutory minimum wage, to alter his policies in the field of public service employment,” and that the official response to the crisis was wholly inadequate.
They called on the government to safeguard jobs, to fight against labor insecurity and to protect workers’ purchasing power.
More than 200 demonstrations were expected across France, according to unions. There was no initial comment from the government about the extent of the action.
The country faces mounting dissatisfaction amid job cuts. Mirroring trends in other European countries, the number of job seekers in France rose in January by 90,200, the highest increase on record, and the fourth-quarter unemployment rate rose to 8.2 percent.
The tire maker Continental is closing a plant in the Oise region which employs 1,120 people. Total, the largest French energy company, announced last week that it planned to shed some 250 jobs in the French refining sector as it cuts capacity at Gonfreville in the northwest of the country.
Faced with expectations that the French economy will contract by nearly 2 percent this year, Mr. Sarkozy announced a $35 billion stimulus plan in December.
But he has held back from announcing further measures, apart from support packages for the auto industry and banks. He recently criticized Britain for seeking to bolster consumption by cutting the value added tax.
Unions want more tax breaks and the opposition Socialist Party has called for a consumption-driven approach to restarting growth.
A poll conducted this week for the magazine Paris Match by IFOP found that 78 percent of the French support the strikers, the highest rate in a decade.
But among passengers waiting for a train to Paris at a station about 15 miles west of the capital, it was hard to find such support. “France is a bit like a sinking boat, and these strikers are just adding more holes,” said Maurice Bataille, 34.
Unsurprisingly, French business leaders expressed frustration at the strike. “It’s a big sign that people don’t know where they are; they don’t know what they want,” Christophe de Margerie, the chief executive of Total, said Wednesday. “They are lost.”
He defended the decision to cut refining jobs as something that “should have been done one or two years ago” and said that the company would keep investing and adding jobs in other areas. Union officials said production had stopped Thursday at six Total refineries, but the company said the impact on production was “limited,” according to Reuters.
Two major demonstrations were planned for central Paris later Thursday in fine spring weather. On Jan. 29, more than a million marched in cities across the country, and the following day, Mr. Sarkozy made some concessions to worker demands.
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