Angry about impending changes to the country’s generous system of unemployment insurance for performers and backstage personnel between gigs, protesting intermittents du spectacle (as they’re called in France) have occupied the Comédie-Française and the Théâtre de l’Odéon in Paris (where this set of protests began, and where performances of Racine’s Phèdre starring Isabelle Huppert have had to be cancelled). Demonstrators say they’ve also occupied the major state theatres in Strasbourg, Bordeaux, Rennes, Caen, Lille, Toulouse, Grenoble, and Montpellier. A disastrous string of protests over the same issue in the summer of 2003 devastated the nation’s summer festivals, causing cancellations even at Avignon and Aix-en-Provence. (in French; Google Translate version here)