Paris was plunged into darkness as thousands of French energy workers staged a mass strike. The 24-hour stoppage was in response to the government's plans to transform state-owned power firms Electricite de France (edf) and Gaz de France (gdf) into limited companies. Unions perceive this as a prelude to a full sell-off, despite the authorities' assurance that they would retain a minimum 70 per cent stake in the utilities.

The strike is the latest in a series of protests against moves to liberalise France's power markets in the past two years. Unions claim that privatising power utilities will lead to large-scale job losses, and undermine France's tradition of public service. They feel privatisation could spawn power cuts similar to ones that paralysed the us east coast and parts of Italy last summer. edf has responded with full-page newspaper ads asserting that consumers will actually benefit from the planned change to limited company status.