For a few short hours, Mr Jean-laude Gayssot was a happy man. After a night of negotiations, the French Transport Minister thought he had an agreement with the three main hauliers' associations. They would rest briefly, then reconvene in his office for a signing ceremony at 11.30 a.m. And the three-day blockade of French oil refineries and fuel depots would be over.
Mr Gayssot had been nearly as generous as his fellow cabinet minister, Mr Jean Glavany, was with French fishermen last week. For forcing half of France's 96 departments to resort to rationing fuel, the hauliers were to receive a 60-centime reduction per litre in fuel taxes over the next 18 months, and every lorry in France would be granted a 17,500-franc (2,101) subsidy - total cost to taxpayers, 1 billion francs. The stakes had risen quickly. On Monday night, Mr Gayssot was offering only 10,000 francs per lorry.
Furthermore, the hauliers would be permanently exempted from a yearly diesel fuel tax rise of 7 centimes - a slap in the face for the Greens' environment minister, Ms Dominique Voynet, who had established the tax to discourage the use of more polluting diesel fuel.
The government "went as far as we could go", Mr Gayssot said. "We cannot allow this paralysis to continue." But when he returned to sign the agreement, it had evaporated. In the intervening hours, the FNTR, the biggest hauliers' group, discovered its members on the barricades wanted their 60-centime reduction now - not 35 centimes retroactive from last January and another 25 centimes next year.
Nor did the lorry drivers want to abandon the tour bus, ambulance and taxi drivers, farmers, removals companies and driving-school instructors who joined in as the protests burgeoned yesterday. Even France's river boatmen took part, blocking traffic on the Seine by anchoring a dozen barges outside the finance ministry. Taxi drivers have promised to paralyse the cities of Paris, Lyon and Marseille today.
The Lyon Saint-Exupery airport has received no aviation fuel since Sunday because of the blockades, so four flights out of Lyon and three flights to Lyon had to be cancelled yesterday. Airports at Nice and Nantes were also affected.
Mr Luc Guyau, the head of the main farmers' union, FNSEA, says he expects a "significant gesture" - ideally, total exemption from fuel tax for farmers - when he meets Mr Glavany this morning. "Solidarity" is the word heard most often on the barricades, where farmers' tractors are parked alongside giant freight trucks. The smaller groups - including ambulance drivers - have so far been ignored by the ministers who are supposed to deal with them.
The fuel protests could not have come at a worse time for the prime minister, Mr Lionel Jospin, who has just lost his popular interior minister in a dispute about Corsican policy, and who has recently seemed overshadowed by his main Socialist rival, the finance minister, Mr Laurent Fabius. Now his allies in the Green Party are denouncing Mr Jospin's concessions to the fishermen and hauliers.
French attitudes seem to be changing. The left-wing Le Monde called the hauliers who have cut fuel supplies "pirates", and criticised Mr Jospin harshly for reneging on his commitment to promote rail transport and reduce pollution. And there are widespread calls for the restructuring of the heavily subsidised French haulage industry.