French President Nicolas Sarkozy has sailed his economic reform fleet straight into a massive storm. By moving to eliminate the “special” pension privileges that allow a select group of government employees to retire at age 50 or 55 with full benefits, Sarkozy has triggered a nationwide strike by indignant transport workers.

Thus far, the French public seems to be backing Sarkozy. The striking workers look like an obstinate minority clinging to the unpopular status quo against the wishes of most Frenchmen and against the actions of France’s democratically elected legislature. On Sunday, France’s normally silent majority was so angered by the strikes that people actually took to the streets: about 8,000 braved the elements in Paris to protest against the strikes. A weekend Ipsos poll commissioned by the government found that 64 percent of Frenchmen are in favor of eliminating special retirement privileges, which marked an increase of 10 percentage points from a week earlier. Support for the striking workers, meanwhile, has slipped from 35 percent to 33 percent.

France’s public transport strikes have been expensive: according to French finance minister Christine Lagarde, they are costing about 300 million to 400 million Euros (or about half a billion U.S. dollars) per day. But there are environmental consequences, too. Olivier Carles, an engineer specializing in carbon emissions, estimates that for every day of transport strikes, an extra 10,000 tons of carbon dioxide is pumped into the atmosphere. That’s more than 20 million extra pounds of carbon dioxide pumped into the air for every day of strikes.

The environmental consequences of the public transport strikes are significant: One engineer estimates that for every day of the strikes, an extra 10,000 tons of carbon dioxide is pumped into the atmosphere.

What’s behind this (admittedly crude) calculation? Normally, says Carles, 5 million residents of Île-de-France (metropolitan Paris) commute to work on any given week day. Of these, about 500,000 travel by foot, while 2 million travel by car and an additional 2 million travel by public transportation. (Few Frenchmen carpool.) Carles estimates that there are roughly 1.5 million more cars on the roads in metropolitan Paris during days of public transport strikes. On average, the cars drive about 17 miles per day—which translates into a total of 25 million miles driven, and 1 million gallons of gasoline consumed, at an average rate of 25 miles per gallon (most French cars get good gas mileage).

Again, these calculations are extremely rough; for instance, Carles may be inadvertently counting people who stay in a hotel close to their employer so they don’t have to commute. Yet on the second day of the last period of strikes (which took place in October), there were more than 160 miles of traffic jams in metropolitan Paris—a remarkable number of cars purring quietly, pumping untold amounts of polluting gases into the air.

What about public transportation? Don’t trains and subways also pollute the air when they run? Not in France, says Carles. The subways and metro trains that transport the bulk of Parisian commuters are powered through France’s electricity grid, which derives roughly 80 percent of its energy from nuclear power plants. No carbon dioxide emissions there. Buses, though a small part of the public transportation system, do emit carbon dioxide, but the amount emitted per passenger is minimal when compared to that emitted by cars.

The real question, then, is not when French strikers will return to work. It’s when concerned environmentalists will call on them to return to work. Indeed, this is a perfect opportunity to combine fiscal responsibility with environmental awareness.

Jurgen Reinhoudt is a research assistant at the American Enterprise Institute.