PARIS - It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas here, and it's not just the decorations. This is the season of the strike, and it sometimes seems as if just about everyone has walked off the job.

Truckers seeking more pay set up dozens of roadblocks with trucks and cars across the country yesterday, but lifted them in the evening. The truckers claim that their profits have plummeted because of tough competition and cheap labor from central Europe. Among other things, the truckers are demanding a 13th month of pay, a common practice that serves as a kind of bonus in Europe.

Tens of thousands of public sector workers plan to take to the streets today to defend public services and to express opposition to the government's move toward privatization.

Subway and bus workers, railroad conductors and air traffic controllers, meanwhile, will stay home today to protest what they consider inadequate salaries and benefits. British Airways has canceled more than 60 flights and much wider disruption of air travel is expected.

Not to be outdone, organizers for the telecommunications union said yesterday that half of the 146,000 workers of France Telecom may strike in front of the Finance Ministry today, to protest the call by the company's new management for job cuts and sales of assets to reduce its debt.

The truckers' blockade was far smaller than those that paralyzed borders and international freight, closed gas stations and halted food shipments in labor disputes in the 1990s.

The two main striking trade unions, which represent more than half of France's unionized truckers, rejected a management offer of a 14 percent pay raise over three years. The offer was accepted by smaller unions Sunday night, and a number of truckers went to work.

Despite dire predictions of shortages of food, water and gasoline, only the region of lower Normandy rationed gasoline yesterday.