Anyone who lives in France, as I do, soon becomes acquainted with strikes and demonstrations. The former often aim at disruption, disordering the routines of daily life. The latter usually aim at mobilization, a symbolic show of force.

There was a strike –a mix of public-sector workers of employees at troubled industrial firms– and a big demonstration in Paris yesterday. It was a lovely Spring day –even if it wasn't officially Spring– and turnout was high. Organizers claimed turnout of three million demonstrators throughout France; authorities pegged the nationwide total at about half that number. Whatever the actual turnout, there was a big crowd marching in Paris yesterday.

What are the demonstrators' demands? This turns out to be a tough question. Apart from some specific demands –to halt layoffs, to boost pensions– the demonstrators call on Sarkozy to act more decisively to stimulate the economy. Opinion polls show that strong majorities –from two thirds to three quarters–  of French people support the demonstrators.

I'd argue that specific demands are secondary, and that what counts most in French demonstrations is the symbolic value behind mobilization. A demonstration is a sort of mirror image of an election: voting is individual, secret, and based on questions (candidacies) decided in advance; demonstrating is collective, done in public, and open-ended as concerns its agenda. I also think that the French demonstration we know today draws on deep cultural roots, going back to religious processions. When I see a big street demonstration in Paris, I think back to Claude Berri's "Manon des Sources", and a scene where Manon and the secular schoolteacher join a religious procession to ask divine intercession so that water flows again (even though Manon and Bernard know who's responsible for the water stoppage, and have just remedied the problem); it's symbolically important that Manon and the schoolteacher join in the procession.