three strikes and you're out!

Apparently this traditional baseball rule does not apply in France. As I write this post, many more public sector workers will be preparing to hang up their uniforms, put down their equipment, and join their SNCF railwaymen counterparts in a one-day (hopefully) general strike tomorrow. The academia of France has also not been left out of the fun - 87 schools across France (14 in Grenoble) have been blockaded since last Tuesday, with the teachers slated to join in tomorrow. Sounds serious? Seems like pandemonium? Even Incroyable?

Yet this is just one of the latest in a long-running series of strikes, something which has become quite of a love-hate affair with the French and foreigners alike.

The labour strikes this time are much higher level than the one which I wrote about the other time - much more to be gained, and of course much more to be lost in this first big test of President Sarkozy's mettle. However, or rather ironically, it seems that the once-popular anti-government stance has softened, due to a greater consensus on the government's proposed reforms, and thus the strikes do not seem sustainable. But as long as the militant (yes they can be very) unions stick to their guns, it sure looks like Monsieur Sarkozy has a lot of work to do!

On the other hand, the school blockade is slowly gathering steam. Like many other countries, France's Ministry of Education wants to privatize the education system. Arguably, this would be seen as a brilliant move by the government to jumpstart the French education system, whose standard is languishing far behind its international peers. However, this would also mean that in the future, school fees might be higher, and French students might be forced to stop school due to the increased fees. Even worse, French schools may start giving preferences to foreign students because of their increased cash value! And thus, the French students are viewing this Americanization of the education system as removing their right to guaranteed education, a long lasting legacy of the Charlemagne era.

And so they block the schools. Here in Grenoble, it seems as though the Toussaint holidays are here again: The usual morning buzz is somewhat more subdued and the queues at the school restaurants are shorter. That is until you see the empty supermarket carts placed neatly at the main entrances of schools, and the massive amount of graffiti proclaiming the injustices of the world on the walls of buildings.

Then you realise that the fact that you can see all this is because you are walking on your way to school at 745am in the morning, because your school is a Grande École with all the elite-sure-can-find-job-after-graduation students, and because the students from the Grandes Écoles are too muggerish to strike. o_O

DAMN!!! SOMEBODY PLEASE COME AND BLOCKADE MY SCHOOL NOW!!!