Paris| A bright red tapestry featuring Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara over the words "Onward toward victory!" exhorts strikers not to give up, in the union's dingy local headquarters. Outside, the local's boss shouts through a megaphone at the Gare de Lyon train station, "The rich should never forget: There will always be the sweat of the poor on their money!"

The transportation strike against the French government's pension overhaul plan is already the longest in the country's history. Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets all over France.