strikes (grèves)

I realized while reading an article on the strikes taking place in France that I had yet to describe them in my blog.   So here's a quick summary of what's happening:  France has a maximum age at which people retire legally.  From then on they receive retirement payments that support them more or less until the end of their lives.  Currently, President Nicholas Sarkozy and the majority of the National Assembly have created a law raising the national age of retirement from 60 to 62.  This has happened three other times in the past 20 years.  The major strike movements have risen from the transportation and oil refinery unions, which obviously effect the economy in a serious way on a day-to-day basis.  This is a nation-wide movement to maintain the current retirement age, and by that I mean college and high school students have joined the strikes by closing or blocking the schools.  For the majority of them, the rise in retirement age means less open jobs when they get their diplomas.  However, the rise in retirement age also means less people to pay for that will reach the retirement age.  Lots of gas stations are running low on gas now, with some of them limiting the amount of gas you can purchase.  The trucking industry pulled some interesting moves, deciding to drive really slow in one long line on the highways causing both traffic and late arrival of their product.  The recent protests in Lyon were apparently violent, with storefront windows broken and a high school set on fire.  The president has addressed these issues by saying that the protestors didn't have the right to take hostage those who didn't have anything to do with the situation and interrupt their daily lives.  He also said that the people who are breaking things won't have the last word in "this democracy, this republic."

The majority of people talk about how the demonstrations affected their trip to school or work.  I had that experience a few times now, where the tram was blocked from the center of town and I had to walk to school, but luckily I don't live too far from the majority of places I need to go. A lot of people are worried about gas and the next time they're going to get it, but again, way less people use gas on a daily basis here in Bordeaux.  Today I went to school, but the professors decided to go on strike and not have classes.  The police were stationed in the center of town, with shoulder pads, batons, and guns (and stern faces).  In terms of responses to the rise in retirement age, most of the students in my classes don't give me a straight answer about whether they are for or against the change in law.  But according to reports I've been reading in the NY Times and Le Monde, the polls show that the majority of people support the strikes.  I don't really know what that means.  I guess time will tell if people really support the strikes.  A lot of people are surprised by the presence of high schoolers in the streets during the protests.  Aunt Melissa and I talked a couple nights ago, and she was unhappy that a certain political party had encouraged the high schoolers to participate in the strikes.  I think the majority of high schoolers were participating because a) they got out of school and b) because they got to be rebellious.  When I saw them today at the center of town, they were saying completely unnecessary things to the cops like, I'm going to move that way now, and you can't stop me.  It was stupid.

For me, it's been interesting to ask the french people about the strikes, and to try to get a collective perception of the movement while not really being connected to it in a serious way.  Sure, I did experience the inconveniences of the lack of trams today, but it made me realize how fast I move normally, and how I expect to move that pace everyday.  At dinner tonight, one of the women who lives in this house from Monday to Thursday told us about how she arrived at work on Tuesday at Bordeaux 3, the liberal arts university.  The buildings were blocked, and the university president told everyone it wasn't worth it to try to work that day.  She said this in a somewhat cheerful manner, but also in a way that was implying she wanted to make it sound serious like there was a confrontation she encountered.  After that, she drove home she said, and enjoyed her day without work.  No one really tries to force their way into a place when people are blocking it.  When we were protesting the rise in public education last semester, there were plenty of students who tried to forcefully make their way through Sather Gate.  Here, people seem to accept the strikes easily, not focusing on the inconvenience that a particular aspect of society had taken a break for the day.