French President Nicolas Sarkozy returned home on Thursday from Washington to face skepticism about his new transatlantic friendship and a month of strikes that signal growing domestic problems. Two powerful Paris public transport unions said on Thursday they would join a wider rail strike from the evening of November 13, after rejecting a government offer on reforming their pensions. Hospital helicopter pilots and police officers also joined a growing list of those protesting over Sarkozy’s reforms that now includes court officials, students and civil servants.

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