By BBC reporter Paul Whitfield in Paris

It has been almost a hundred days since a Big Mac was last served at the McDonald's on Boulevard Saint Denis.

The restaurant's workers, like much of France in recent weeks, are on strike. They have occupied the McDonald's, plastering it with protest slogans and barring its entrance.

The local 'MacDo' is overtaken by protestors

Dalia, a worker at the McDonald's, says: "We are fighting for a right not to be exploited. The franchisee wanted to introduce an American system of work.

"He wanted one person to do the job of three, he didn't want to pay overtime and he often paid late."

The strike started on March 11.

If it lasts a few more weeks, Dalia and her co-workers will break the record for the longest ever strike at a fast food company. The previous mark of 115 days was set last year, by the same McDonald's.

McDonald's France, which oversees some 978 restaurants, blames the strike on the workers. Etienne Aussedat, a spokesman, says:

"The franchisee is not able to enter his own restaurant, this is no way to behave. It is not necessary and it is frustrating for everyone."

Long hot summer

Welcome to industrial relations French-style. It's direct, costly, inconvenient and all too common.

Over the past two months France has suffered through strikes by refuse collectors, train drivers, tax officials, airport workers, electricity board workers, teachers, postal workers and emergency doctors.

With the exception of the doctors, who want more funding, the cause of this wave of strikes is plans to reform France's ailing pension system.

Striking refuse collectors leave Paris littered

The government of prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin wants public sector workers to pay into the state pension scheme for 40 years, rather than 37.5.

They also want to increase the length of time everyone must work before they qualify for a pension, to 41 years from 2012, and then 42 by 2020.

The country's four biggest unions are having none of it. Led by the pro-communist CGT, they say the government is whittling away workers benefits.

A summer of strike action has been promised and to date delivered on.

Mr Raffarin is standing firm. "The street can give its view but the street does not govern," he says.

Sticking with tradition

Strikes are nothing new to France - The French Revolution was born on the back of peasant protests, while the student demonstrations of May 1968 have achieved folkloric status.

Yet the French are not Europe's most prolific strikers. A study by the European Industrial Relations Observatory (EIRO) found that from 1998 to 2001 France lost 2.44m working days to strike action.

This compares with over 8m in Spain, and 3.25m in Italy.

We sell anti McDonald's t-shirts, have concerts and get donations. This support is natural in France Dalia, McDonald's worker in Paris

The remarkable thing about French protests is not how common they are but how well they are organised, and perhaps more surprisingly, how enthusiastically they are supported by the public.

In a country where only 13% of the work force is unionised, the support of non-union workers is crucial.

Despite having their roads, ports, train stations and McDonald's barricaded, there has always been a natural empathy amongst the French for the cause of workers and their protests.

Dalia says: "We have great support, without it we would starve.

"We sell anti McDonald's t-shirts, have concerts and get donations. This support is natural in France."

But supporting workers in your local 'McDo' - as the French affectionately call McDonald's - and putting up with walking to work in the sweltering heat are proving to be two different things.

A strike too far?

There is evidence that this time the government is winning the battle for public hearts and minds over pensions.

Polls suggest that public support for the strikes has fallen, from about 65% at the start of the strikes to nearer 50%.

I think many of them are just striking to be annoying they have no real agenda Cy Padmore, telecoms worker in Paris

In Paris, recent calls to stop work have not been well observed. Many trains, busses and metros ran with little disruption during the last day of strikes.

Fears that teachers would stop students taking their final school exams also failed to materialise - though this may have more to do with common sense than waning support for strike action.

The danger for the unions is that public sympathy, once lost, could be hard to recapture, and in the battle for pension reform they may have chosen a battle they can't win.

Many people see the new proposals as a long overdue levelling of a pension system that favoured state employees.

Others resent so-called professional strikers that seem intent on causing trouble, while still more are just fed up with the inconvenience of walking to work.

Joining the bandwagon

Cy Padmore, a telecoms worker in Paris, says: "I understand why they are striking but I don't support them. I think many of them are just striking to be annoying they have no real agenda.

"On Tuesday night there were riots in the Place de la Concorde and that had nothing to do with pensions, they were just trying to make trouble."

Unfortunately for the French public it seems increasingly likely that the strikes will drag on through the summer.

Still, it could be worse, they could be spending the long hot days locked in a McDonald's.