Paris France Transportation

Above ground and below the streets of Paris, police and soldiers patrolled on Wednesday in increased numbers, checking identity papers and frisking some passersby as the government swiftly revived a bevy of anti-terrorism measures. The increased security came one day after a bomb on a rapid transit train during evening rush hour killed two people and injured 88 others at a station on the Left Bank.

With the skies over the City of Light blurred by an eye-smarting pall of le Smog, French authorities for the first time ordered half of Parisian motorists to leave their cars home Wednesday and get to work and back some other way. And to the surprise of many, the people of Paris--ferociously individualistic and devoted to their automobiles--mostly complied. Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin drove to the weekly meeting of the Cabinet in a two-door, electric-powered Peugeot.

With the skies over the City of Light blurred by an eye-smarting pall of le Smog, French authorities for the first time ordered half of Parisian motorists to leave their cars home Wednesday and get to work and back some other way. And to the surprise of many, the people of Paris--ferociously individualistic and devoted to their automobiles--mostly complied. Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin drove to the weekly meeting of the Cabinet in a two-door, electric-powered Peugeot.

Above ground and below the streets of Paris, police and soldiers patrolled on Wednesday in increased numbers, checking identity papers and frisking some passersby as the government swiftly revived a bevy of anti-terrorism measures. The increased security came one day after a bomb on a rapid transit train during evening rush hour killed two people and injured 88 others at a station on the Left Bank.

To some, the recent developments along the broad Avenue des Champs-Elysees are nothing less than a "massacre" of one of the world's great streets--a desecration of the French triumphal path that once bore the ashes of Napoleon Bonaparte and the coffin of Victor Hugo. "The degradation of the Champs-Elysees reflects the degradation of society in general," argues Maurice Casanova, owner of Fouquet's, the last remaining classic belle epoque- style restaurant left on the avenue.

Public transport workers demanding higher pay paralyzed the vast rail and bus network in this capital and environs on Thursday with a one-day strike, sending a blunt message to the candidates running for French president that similar social trouble may lie in wait for the winner.

Public transport workers demanding higher pay paralyzed the vast rail and bus network in this capital and environs on Thursday with a one-day strike, sending a blunt message to the candidates running for French president that similar social trouble may lie in wait for the winner.

To some, the recent developments along the broad Avenue des Champs-Elysees are nothing less than a "massacre" of one of the world's great streets--a desecration of the French triumphal path that once bore the ashes of Napoleon Bonaparte and the coffin of Victor Hugo. "The degradation of the Champs-Elysees reflects the degradation of society in general," argues Maurice Casanova, owner of Fouquet's, the last remaining classic belle epoque- style restaurant left on the avenue.