STRIKE! STRIKE! STRIKE!

---

…Ah, yes, the French love their strikes. Right now, the SNCF is on strike. This time for an extended period of time; it has already been somewhere around a week and a half or so. Some trains are running, but fewer, and with fewer stops. This is, as they say, “l’enfer” (hell) for almost everyone. From the daily commute to work to business trips to personal vacations, everyone is having to come up with a Plan B and C for while this is going on. For more info about why they’re striking (it mainly has to do with the retirement setup in place), refer to any major newspaper. The important part, though is this: though (due to the length and long-reaching effects of this particular strike) there are actually people complaining about the strike, they still do not say that they should not be striking, for the most part. It is their right to strike to get what they want, and it is expected that they do just that. Oh, and it seems that when one group strikes, everyone else decides it’s about that time, so we have also been having strikes in our schools (I didn’t have to work for two days because of them) as well as the nationalized gas and electric companies striking. Oh, and universities. And, of course, with striking come multiple protests and demonstrations and “parades” (in French, the same word that designates a parade also indicates a march for any sort of cause, demonstration, or protest). Which means loud music, angry chanting, blocked roads, and the occasional smoke bomb to break up a potential problem area. It isn’t all the time, but it seems to be at least once a day lately, varying in size and intensity. The ‘sens de la collectivité’ still shocks me here.

---