Changing Tack, French Militants Turn off Power to Press Government

Opening another front in their battle against the French government, union militants said they cut power to thousands of Parisians on Tuesday, plunging homes into darkness and closing down train services to one of the capital's two main airports.

The deliberate outage lasted around two hours and hit users in the southern suburbs of Paris, said Franck Jouanno, a local leader of the leftist CGT union. That area includes the Orly international airport and the massive Rungis market that supplies food to the Paris region.