Hi there, you've downloaded the BBC Radio programme from our own correspondent.

We make two versions, and if you'd like to hear our World Service programme, you'll find it on the BBC iPlayer.

This, though, is the edition broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It's presented by Kate Adie.

Today we have a French lesson for an American lorry driver.

There's the surprising story of why some schools in Japan are funded by the North Koreans. In Uganda, children hear explicit warnings about AIDS. And in Ireland, we learn how a 21st century St. Patrick could help out with their economic woes. Everybody knows that the French

love to go on strike. Well, at least that's the stereotype we like to believe. And while we're

all facing extreme belt-tightening measures, this week's announcement that we would have to work

longer before getting our pensions to 66, passed without any significant reaction.

Yet in France, the unions have been out on the streets in force,

because the government wants to increase the retirement age from 60 to 62.

Matthew Price began his new job as the BBC's Europe correspondent on Monday,

and immediately he was plunged into the world of Gallic industrial disputes.

I'm going through a little bit of culture shock.

For the last three years, I've been based in the US,

and the only protests I've covered,

the only ones vocal enough to have been worth reporting on, have been

angry mobs demanding the government stop spending and get out of their lives. Now, just one

week into my new role as Europe correspondent, I'm faced with angry mobs demanding the exact

opposite. An end to government cutbacks, a promise that the state will continue to provide for them.

Talk about a change of scene.

The Americans could never stomach, or indeed even understand, what's been happening in Marseilles.

The stench of rotting oranges, old coffee grounds and the occasional

...