You don't feel like going to work, either? Let's strike!

For a blog that has a French title, it is utterly appalling that I've yet to cover any French news. I shall now rectify that situation (and hopefully get back to updating regularly now that I've mostly unpacked from my latest move).

The French love to strike. No, seriously, they LOVE it. If even a little bit dissatisfied with the taste of their bread, they will take to the streets for a protest (a 'manif'). I once was waiting for a train in Antibes, and they announced that the train would be about four minutes late. I am a girl who took public transportation (in the States) to get high school for four years, so I've dealt with a lot worse than a four minute delay. Clearly the French didn't have my jaded opinion of public transit, because upon hearing this announcement, I heard sighs and grumbles and saw people shaking their heads. One woman started ranting to me about how this was intolerable. I managed to keep from laughing. Barely.

Thankfully, the train wasn't any later than the anticipated four minutes, or I'm pretty sure there would've been a manif on the spot. I don't even want to know what would've happened if any French had been stuck on the Amtrak train I was on that was delayed four hours. They would've stormed the conductor's office without a second thought (we Americans, however, simply stayed seated, whined, and only began to panic when the snack bar ran out of food).

Despite their distaste for inefficient transit, the French have no qualms about going on strike every day (or every other day, should they get rather tired of doing it every day) and making sure to take to the streets for every strike. These strikes will almost always shut down roads, so driving isn't an option (try to plan moving days for when there isn't a strike--trust me, I know). And it seems that anyone in the transportation sector will join anyone else on strike. In fact, the biggest problem with strikes in France is that they're never limited to just one sector. When the teachers go on strike, the students protest with them, and then their parents decide that a strike and a manif sound like way more fun than going to work that day, so they jump on the strike bandwagon.

As a result, I wasn't even a little bit shocked to read that a good percentage of France is on strike over the retirement age. It appears that Sarkozy (henceforth referred to as Sarko, since an eight-year old French child I met when abroad called him that, and I decided to pick it up) is discussing raising the retirement age to 61 or 62.

I know, I know. They killed off the 35-hour work week in France, they have between five and eight weeks of vacation a year, and now this?! Appalling, really.

So naturally, everyone has gone on strike. Government workers, oil workers, hospital workers, teachers, and, of course, transport workers (because the transportation sector will never, never, miss out on a strike). Even Nestle is joining in, which is reason enough to panic in my book (there's no chocolate being made! CRISIS! Just give them all anything they ask for! Hell, make the retirement age 49!). Because, really, a retirement age of anything above 60 is just inhumane.

Oh, France. Just when I start to worry that the world has gone complacent, you remind me that I have nothing to worry about. It's such a relief to know that while all sorts of crazy things are going on around the world, I can always count on France to be blessedly consistent. Once I move to France in September, I will be greve-ing to my heart's delight!