Journalists Strike To Keep Big Tax Break

French journalists laid down their notebooks and cameras Tuesday and took to the streets on behalf of the greater good: theirs.

The extraordinary media protest was provoked by a government threat to repeal a 30 percent tax exemption for journalists, a perk dating from the 1930s.

The net effect of its repeal, leaders of the journalist union said, could be the loss of a month’s wages every year.

The daylong strike, punctuated by a rally outside the French National Assembly, shut down most of the operations of the French state-owned broadcasters and French-language wire services. The presses stopped, too. Today’s editions of many French newspapers will not appear.