France to Strike on Thursday

[St Leo]

March of 2005 is the new May of 1968.

Soyez réalistes, demandez l'impossible!

[Lawrence of Arabia]

il est interdit d'interdire.
l'imagination prend le pouvoir
ne vous emmerdez plus, emmerdez les autres

(for some reason i cant pronounce Marx in french no matter how hard i try.)

[Vince278]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
Korean Britney

Back to Britney again are we?

[Ted Striker]

Even better, Korean Transsexual Britney

[Giancarlo]

Strike for outrageous demands and get nothing in the end.. that's the French way.

[Saras]

15 years of LITHUANIAN INDEPENDENCE

[Dinner]

He's feeling decidedly nationalist after that argument he had with Serb.

[Saras]

You mean serb's utter pwnage?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
Are they striking just for fun or do they have a real reason?

Sinking purchase power, and the general worsening of the daily life of most people that are lower than middle-middle class.

There is a strong social malaise in France since Chirac's re-election, and his punishments on the poor and the unemployed didn't help any. One year ago, Chirac's party suffered a stunning defeat (never seen such a strong slap in the face in my whole life), yet his ilk continues the "reforms" which are nothing less than obeying the whim of the employers.

French companies have been doing record profits last year, but this money is nowhere to be seen in the pockets of the average Frenchman. The series of strikes has begun monthes ago, and we'll continue to regularly have strikes as long as our lawmakers don't understand the extend of change we demand.

This message comes from someone who'll take the train in a few hours.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Ah yes... the national happiness of preventing people from getting where they need to go. I'm sure all the commuters will be overjoyed when they deal with immense delays .

These kind of strikes generally get a majority approval, despite being horribly painful for the average user. That's because the train-drivers are among the very few French workers who can go on strike.

For years now, there has been a massive intimidation perpetrated by the employers towards their employees, so that they don't complain. The fact that we have plenty of unemployed (who'd be more than happy to take their job) and plenty of foreign underpaid competitors (idem) prevents pretty much everybody to go on strike in the private sector.

Ergo, the train drivers become the symbol of what many Frenchmen would want to do, but are afraid to.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by mrmitchell
No! No! No! I'm going to Paris two weeks from now!

And you didn't tell me?

I'll be in Paris by that time (actually, I leave Stuttgart in two hours, for three weeks). PM me so that we can arrange a meet

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Jeez... wacky French. Hey, if they want to mess up the economy of Paris for a few days or weeks that's their problem .

We messed up the economy of Paris for a whole month in 1995. The strike has been hugely successful, as the government's plan (on retirements) had been removed for several years. However, the strike was too long for the popularity of the strikers. What began as a very popular strike ended up pissing most people.

The unions have now learned, and they're having short dramatic strikes instead, that get enough broad support so that the government can't simply let the situation rot.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Oerdin
The solution to students striking is simple. Make them still pay fees but don't give them a penny of financial aid while on strike. End of stupid student strikes.

Not quite.

A great many students do not get any significant direct financial aid. Pretty much every student from the middle class or higher is sustained by their parents. It comes from the fact that the State intervention doesn't take the form of vouchers, but of very low university fees and lower prices on most services (eating, transportation, habitation etc.). It's not the kind of financial aid you can cut on individual basis for a few days or weeks. And all university fees are paid for at the beginning of the year.

[Adrian Hon]

Amusing timing since the IOC inspectors are in Paris today

[Spiffor]

Yup.

The demonstrators purposefully use an alternative demo-route, so that the IOC inspectors can see the city. Of course, they'll see traffic jams and Parisians at their worst today, so it's not exactly the fun day to come