Rail and subway strikes are causing lost sales, lost bookings and lost time throughout the country.
PARIS — Glittering with Christmas decorations, Galeries Lafayette, a famed department store in central Paris, typically draws up to 80,000 visitors a day during the holidays.
But on a recent weekday morning, an uncharacteristically small crowd browsed designer clothes and artisanal chocolates in the grand halls. Employees smiled and pointed to discount signs, though few were ringing up sales.
In front of the store, Gabriel Vassor, a barista, tried to lure customers to his sidewalk coffee stand with free cookies, to no avail. 'Revenue is 40 percent lower than what it should be at this time of year,' he said, as harried pedestrians marched past. 'We’re taking a big hit.'
As France heads into a third week of rail and subway strikes over a planned overhaul of the country’s pension system, the nation’s economy, Europe’s second largest after Germany, is beginning to feel the bite. After the government and French unions failed to reach an agreement on Thursday, there were few signs that the gridlock was about to let up.

In Paris and other cities where protests have brought half a million demonstrators into the streets, consumer spending is down. Restaurants and retailers face staff shortages as employees spend hours trying to get to work, if they can make it at all.

Trucks sit in hundreds of miles of traffic jams outside major cities, on highways choked with drivers who normally would be taking a train, delaying deliveries of items like TVs and toys. Tourism is starting to slide, especially in Paris, leaving restaurants, shops and hotels short of free-spending clients.
Around three-quarters of Paris-area business owners plan to freeze hirings that were set to begin in January because of a loss of economic activity, MEDEF, France’s main employers association, said this week.
'It’s a catastrophic situation,' said Bernard Stalter, president of the National Chamber of Trade Crafts, which represents small businesses and artisans across France. If the gridlock persists, he added, the hit to the economy — and jobs — could worsen.

The risk grew more pronounced after Philippe Martinez, the head of the combative Confédération générale du travail, said Thursday that members of his union, which includes train drivers, port dockers and electricity workers, would keep striking during the holidays. The union, which counts 650,000 members, plans another round of nationwide demonstrations on Jan. 9.
