FRANCE: For the 44 per cent of French employees who are expected to show up for work today, this is a day of solidarity with the elderly and handicapped.
The €2 billion generated by their labour will go directly into the newly established National Solidarity Fund for Autonomy (CNSA).
Most of the remaining 56 per cent are defying a law passed last year by taking off Whit Monday (lundi de Pentecôte), the day after the 50th day after Easter, when the Holy Spirit is believed to have descended on the Apostles.
At least 14 per cent of salaried employees will go on strike, raising the question of how their pay can be docked for a day when they were supposed to work for free. The rest have been given the day off by their employers or are claiming an "RTT" - extra time off, made possible by France's 35-hour working week.
This strange invention - a bank holiday (since 1886) on which one is required by law to work without pay - is more frequently described as a mess.
President Jacques Chirac, according to the satirical newspaper Canard enchaîné, calls it a bordel, which my dictionary politely translates as "shambles".
The road to France's latest bout of chaos was paved with good intentions. In August 2003, up to 15,000 elderly people died prematurely in the country's worst heat wave in half a century. When prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin suggested that the entire country donate a day's salary to help its senior citizens, opinion polls showed that a majority supported the idea.
Nearly two years later, a poll published by Le Parisien shows that 68 per cent now oppose the day of solidarity. Worse still for Chirac and Raffarin, the disgruntled public have turned it into a mock referendum, a precursor of the May 29th vote on the European constitutional treaty. Dissatisfaction over the forced day of labour is credited with driving the No vote up to 54 per cent again, in a poll conducted at the end of the week.
The day of solidarity was the brainchild of a civil servant who had served as a diplomat in Germany. Since 1995, France's closest ally has transformed the Protestant "day of penitence and prayer" into a working day to finance payments for dependent members of society, without serious hitches.
To be fair, Germany was less successful at quashing its October 3rd Reunification Day holiday last autumn. Chancellor Schröder's government backed down in the face of a public outcry.
Which, to be sure, is what Mr Raffarin wishes he'd done. His office at Matignon insists that "only 10 to 15 per cent" of French people will be inconvenienced by the Whit Monday rebellion.
France's railway system, the SNCF, should function normally, because its management came to an absurd agreement with 160,000 employees whereby Whit Monday remains a holiday in exchange for an extra one minute and 52 seconds of work on every other work day.
In Paris, seven transport unions will go on strike, though the transport authority insists service will be normal. Close to 190 supermarkets will be closed because of strikes. Strike notices for bus, tram and metro services have been issued in 89 French towns and cities. Employees at the post office, electricity and telephone companies are also striking. Schools may be open, shut or simply baby-sit.
Poor Mr Raffarin is just recovering from gall bladder surgery, and opinion polls show that 45 per cent of the French want his resignation. "The law must be applied," he insisted on April 28th. He will take stock of today's events on TV tomorrow night.
Comments on the right insinuate that the French are lazy and impossible to govern. Wrong, says left-wing paper Libération: "It is not the egotism of the French that is in question, but the incompetence of the government that is at fault. For its reform is intrinsically messy, unfair and insufficient."
More than one million French people are over 85. Their number will double by 2020. The day of solidarity will raise only one third of the €6 billion needed to finance the arrival of another 90,000 elderly people in retirement homes by 2010.