The strikes went ahead, disrupting the lives of hundreds of thousands of Parisians and tourists.The museum strike, meanwhile, was supported by only about 15 per cent of employees, yet management and govern-ment did not challenge the picket lines set up outside almost every nationally run museum in Paris and several in the provinces.As a result, the Louvre – the highlight of many visits to the French capital – has been closed for almost three weeks; so has the Musee d’Orsay, home of the state collection of Impressionist paintings; so have the peaceful gardens of the Musee Rodin.”Some tourists are becoming aggressive,” Daniel Le Bavant, president of the hotel owners’ federation in the greater Paris area, said. “They want their money back and say they’ll never come to Paris again.”Hotels and tour operators have looked for alternatives, with little success. There is a 25 per cent increase in visits to the military museum at Les Invalides, but most visitors feel that a distant view of Napoleon’s tomb cannot compare with a first glimpse of the Mona Lisa.The Louvre has turned away about 320,000 visitors in the past 20 days, losing pounds 800,000 and raising the prospect that several exhibitions scheduled for later this year will be cancelled. Shopkeepers in the Carrousel, the museum’s underground shopping centre, are protesting against the protesters. One banner said: “10,000 tourists, 49 shops, 400 employees of the Carrousel and 60,000,000 French people: taken hostage by 80 strikers.”A kind of settlement was announced yesterday, and the museums should reopen today.

But unions are adamant that the action is merely suspended until the end of this month, and will be resumed if the government reneges on its promises. A particular bone of con- tention is whether staff will be paid for their days on strike.Tourists cannot relax yet.. THE SHELVES of the cooked meat section were bare yesterday in the Bascule branch of Delhaize supermarket in Brussels. The poultry aisle was being shunned, but there was a small scrum around the pizzas. “You have to eat something,” said one elderly lady, putting a ham pizza into her basket. Minutes later she returned and replaced it with one of the four cheeses variety. This scene in the capital was played out all over Belgium as the country’s scare over cancer-causing dioxins in food threatens to spread out of control.

On Monday, the list of suspect products printed in the local press included 45 categories, ranging from chicken, eggs and sausages to tiramisu, and including many Belgian specialities such as mayonnaise, waffles and pate de foie But it expands daily. The banner headline in yesterday’s La Libre Belgique summed up the mood of near-panic: “No eggs, no chicken, no meat, no milk, no butter, no cheese…” Suddenly rabbit is all the rage in Brussels.
Even in the canteen at Nato’s Brussels headquarters the sandwich selection has dwindled to one option: cheese and salad. Soon it will probably be just salad – without mayonnaise, of course.What appears to have been a one-off problem from a firm that supplied fat to animal feed makers has developed into an economic, political and social crisis known as Chickengate.There could scarcely be a more cruel fate to visit upon a small nation so proud of its cuisine. The land of the gourmand and many Michelin-starred restaurants is racked with self- doubt, a country where the opinion polls report that more than 60 per cent of the population is fearful for its health.Last weekend hordes of Belgians crossed into France and Germany to shop But this precaution may not prove effective. One consignment of chicken sold in France and marketed as French was Belgian.The crisis started in January when a Belgian chicken producer noticed problems, which an insurance company investigation identified as stemming from fat processed into animal feed.Test results in April indicated that animal fats produced by Verkest, which are used in making animal feed, had been contaminated with dioxin.

The father and son who run the company, based near Ghent, remain in jail awaiting trial for supplying contaminated fats to manufacturers in Belgium, France and the Netherlands. At least 1,400 Belgian farms were affected.No category of food has been banned, but retailers now have to provide certificates which say either that their produce has been tested or that it came from none of the farms affected. Foreign imports are at a premium.Politically the crisis could not have come at a worse time, with Belgium due to hold its general election on Sunday. Two ministers have resigned, being held responsible for the government’s failure to notify the public or the European Commission of the problem for several weeks.There have been some beneficiaries.