So, there is an enormous General Strike here in France. There are, according to the radio broadcast to which I occasionally listen, protesting the increasing cost of living, layoffs, the economic crisis, to protect the 35-hour work week , stop university and education reforms, for public service integrity, against capitalism, for fuzzy kittens and against bad weather.
There are supposedly 65,000 people on the streets of Paris, (if you’re reading this now-ish, check out the webcam on Place Bastille here.
The brewers are on strike! This is more serious than I had thought.
In Strasbourg, there are apparently 10,000 people on the streets. I ventured out, just as if I were a real reporter, on the assumption that they’d be congregating on either Place Kleber or Place de Republique. I tried to get to the head of the line, causing at least one union goon to follow me, presumably thinking I was a narc or something. The fact that I'm wearing a second-hand Canadian prison guard's jacket probably did not help.
The theatre people are on strike? But what will we do without... hey, did you guys see that funny youtube video that's been going around?
In any case, they appeared to be marching in circles, and when I gave up tracking them, the lead marchers were just about to catch up to those at the end of the line, thus completing a striker’s doughnut, that would presumably march around the downtown until their megaphone batteries ran out.
2 comments:
Nice pics! Glad we managed to avoid the strike. Although I can't argue with their pro-fuzzy-kitten policy.
On the morning we left for Paris, we were sitting in the Munich airport when we heard about a Lufthansa flight attendant strike that had just started. We were relieved to be flying Air France. It seemed backwards.
Too funny. That's a complete reversal of the natural order of things.
Post a Comment