As the saying goes, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. In France, the mayor of a poor town took his protest public as he staged a sidewalk hunger strike in front of the Parliament as he begged for emergency aid.
Stephane Gatignon, mayor of Paris suburb Sevran, lived outside the National Assembly for six days. During that time, Gatignon ate no food and slept in a tent. It was a public plea for $6.4 million of rescue aid, without which he said his small city would fall into fiscal ruin.
The Parliament agreed to increase funding to small and poor cities in its next budget, and members of the Parliament assured Gatignon that the money would be allocated in a way that would help his city.
That satisfied the hungry mayor, who agreed to collapse his tent and move home. With the hunger strike ended, Gatignon will ease himself back onto food by eating broth and soup for several days.
Read the full story at Reuters.com and France24.com