“En grève” in France
So for the past few months (I guess?), there have been strikes going on in Paris and in the rest of France. From what I hear, this is a common occurrence. Except it’s really bizarre to me, because no one in the United States ever goes on strike (except last year when half of Hollywood went on strike because they’re babies and as such, ruined my weekly TV Show schedule).
The strikes that are going on now are centered around economic policies regarding schools and public transportation. I read an article the other day that had this to say:
French unions have claimed that up to three million people have taken part in street protests amid a national strike against France’s economic policies.
Police gave an estimate of 1.2 million people at rallies nationwide.
Schools have been closed and public transport disrupted, with demonstrations held in about 200 towns.
Unions are demanding more is spent to protect workers in the recession. Unemployment has reached two million and is expected to rise further.
Quite a few times since I’ve been there, I have seen and heard lines of police cars going through the streets, sirens blaring. I’ve also seen a march or two going on. My family once told me that sometimes, in order to prevent people from burning cars, the police will go through at night and remove all of the cars from the street and park them somewhere. The police take note of the arrangement of the cars and then, when the protest is over, they replace all of the cars. Some businesses also close down. The other day I went for a walk and a place called FNAC, which is kind of like Best Buy, was on strike. The metro has shut down on me twice late at night (one time which resulted in me coming home at 7h00 in the morning…), which to put mildly, is annoying.
Many of the schools in Paris have been on strike since the beginning of the semester. Fortunately, my school, Sciences-Po, is not part of the Paris university system, so we suffer a lot less. Andrew, the other foreign exchange student that attends La Sorbonne, goes to class every day not knowing if there will be a professor or any students there. I realize that most US students would love this, except Andrew finds it immensely frustrating because he is forced to make the trip to class and finds that his efforts were for naught.
I have come to find that other people see Sciences-Po as being a very arrogant school. This also applies to this situation. A couple of times, the coordinators of the strikes have called on all universities in France to join efforts. However, Sciences-Po never does, and this of course makes everyone mad. For the past two weeks, some of the exits at our buildings have been closed down, and there are also security guards at the gate of the main building that demand a student identification card. Just this past week, police were forced to shut down the street of the main building in order to ward off protestors. Also, on one of the days (I think it was Wednesday), two hundred students from other universities stormed the doors of Sciences-Po and occupied the classrooms in protest. I wasn’t there at the time, but needless to say, it’s been interesting.
The tension seems to have been escalating in recent days, so I’m kind of excited (in a dark way, I suppose) to see what happens. If anything does, I’ll be sure to let you know.
