As French strikers try to paralyze their country in their efforts to save the welfare state, the parallel with the U.S. could not be starker. In one country the popular, grass-roots movement is trying to save and increase government expenditure. On this side of the Atlantic however, the Tea Partiers have usurped and misunderstood the traditional revolutionary slogan “No taxation without representation”.

The burqa debate is back on in France, and a Washington University anthropologist has become part of it. The French government has asked anthropology professor John Bowen to testify on the matter, as a parliamentary commission is investigating a possible ban on burqas in public places. France banned burqas in public schools in 2004.