Bra wars raise temperature in French election campaign

From The Guardian:

First came the tent-sized, giant lace bra and bloomers brandished by desperate women urging Nicolas Sarkozy to save their smalls. Then there was a threatened hunger strike by workers who stitched patriotic under-wiring in tricolour red, white and blue while singing protest songs about bras to the tune of Status Quo's In the Army Now.

After weeks of bra wars led by a tiny group of determined factory workers in a rural town in central France, women's underwear has been catapulted to the heart of the French election campaign. Lingerie has become the symbol of all that is wrong with the economy.

The lowly paid "fairy fingers" of the Lejaby underwear factory in Yssingeaux waged war against plans to shut their factory and outsource to Tunisia their intricate job of stitching straps, cups and hooks for famous French lace bras.

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