Hollande Faces First Challenge From Base in Union Protest

Thousands of French workers demonstrated today across the country in what is President Francois Hollande’s first public challenge from his base.

Five months after he was elected, the Socialist president confronts many of the voters who put him into office as unions and some lawmakers from his own party take him to task over Europe’s deficit-trimming fiscal pact and pledges to make French labor more flexible. Protestors marched in eight French cities, including Paris, Marseille and Bordeaux, after CGT, France’s biggest union, called for strikes and demonstrations.