The Christian Science Monitor

Gasoline prices in Europe are even higher, roughly 1.5 euros per liter for regular in the French countryside last month or about $8.50 a gallon. But petrol, as it’s called, has always cost a lot more in Europe, in large part because of much higher taxes at the pump.

And even as protest strikes rippled across Spain and edged into France, Europeans had taken conservation measures that in the long haul leave them better-prepared than Americans to deal with the energy crunch ahead.