I took a taxi because I was running late and had a meeting. The driver was taciturn till we got to Place de la Concorde, where an immense traffic jam was forming because of a demonstration on the other side of the river. "It's all blocked over there," he said.
"It'll be worse once the Mayor blocks the voies sur berge [fast roads along the river]," I said.
"Already you can scarcely move in Paris," he said. "All the little streets are going to be permanently polluted with traffic jams." He drove around a woman who had parked in the middle of an express lane to answer her phone. "The cops, they never stop people like that," he complained. "But they stop me all the time even though I've never even run a red light.
"They've made my clients miss planes," he said. "They've kept them for half an hour while they write a ticket. They don't care. The cops love to stop taxis. But sometimes I get a bigwig in the back seat, yes, quite often, and then the client calls the cop over to the window and shows his badge. Then the cops just back off and wave us through."
