HERE’S MORE ON SABINE HEROLD, who’s leading popular resistance to French strikers:

Shouting into a microphone to loud applause, Ms Herold delivered a stirring message to the tens of thousands of followers who gathered in the Place du Chatelet in the centre of Paris at the weekend, to hear her speak on behalf of her association, Liberté, j’écris ton nom.

“How numerous we are today. More than I would ever have dared hope for just a month ago, when the strike was all around us,” she said.

“We have put a full stop to decades of silent submission. This time, for the first time, we have told them no,” she added, referring to the strikers she calls “reactionary egotists”.

France, she said lacks dynamism – and needs a good dose of Margaret Thatcher.

“France needs someone capable who would mobilise people and smash the unions. Well, I don’t know if we can put it like that, but someone who could give a reforming spirit. I think the French at the moment are lacking in desire, they don’t have a ‘French dream’ like the American dream,” she said.

She is unimpressed with the president, Jacques Chirac, part of what she calls the “spineless centre” of French politics.

Spineless, but, ahem, well-compensated.