You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Submit your comments on this article
Europe
France grinds to a halt amid protests at Chirac reforms
2003-05-14
The French Street makes itself heard, in a drunken, "we don't want to be treated as individuals," kind of way. Les miserables are upset.
Hundreds of thousands of protesting French workers poured on to the streets yesterday in the largest anti-government demonstrations for almost a decade.
B-b-but Chirac's so loved, right?!
Schools and government offices were closed and public transport was at a standstill as the marchers sought to scare off President Jacques Chirac and his prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, from reforming France's fiercely protected public sector.
Scare tactics, on a Frenchman? Oh yes.
The unions have threatened to shut down the country for weeks if the government does not back off from reforming the pensions system. In Paris, demonstrators marched from the Place de la Republique fired up by beer and pastis.
Does that mean they're pastissed, or pastissed-off? Maybe they're feeling ale-ienated
Members of all the major unions were out in force, doctors and nurses in lab coats and masks, teachers in Che Guevara uniform T-shirts, postmen on their yellow bicycles and burly railwaymen bellowing in the sunshine.
I'll take the nurses, thank you very much. Put the rest in the idiot bin.
"There is a political void in France," said Patrick Pelloux, 39, head of a union for hospital workers. "The politicians have failed to understand the evolution of our society and they are all corrupt. Chirac is the worst."
You got that right, but for the wrong reasons, presumably.
Like many marchers, M Pelloux turned out during last year's presidential elections to protest against Jean-Marie Le Pen, the National Front leader. But now he feels that election was no more than an indicator of France's political vacuum, epitomised by M Chirac. "He is the source of the nothingness," he said.
Not exactly. He's done a lot for France's reputation abroad.
Public transport and the airlines were almost at a standstill yesterday. Scarcely any local trains and only a quarter of the high-speed TGV trains ran. In Paris, more than 90 per cent of bus and Metro employees joined the strike, forcing people to walk, bicycle or share cars to get to work. In all, around 50 towns and cities across France had little or no public transport. The strike by air traffic controllers, customs officers, firemen and other airport personnel meant the cancellation of 80 per cent of domestic flights and serious interruptions to international schedules. Schools were also closed as two thirds of teachers joined the strike.
Depriving the children of education, For The Children (TM)
Regine Linard, 45, a nurse from a Paris hospital, said that yesterday's protest was about much more than pension reform. "It is about the European conception of society. Are we going to be recognised for our work or not?" she said. She said the previous Socialist government, under Lionel Jospin, was just as bad as the present one in terms of standing up for workers. "The real Left is broken," she said. Her observation was borne out by the lack of clear support for the strikes from the Socialist Party, so consumed by infighting that it has almost vanished from political life. Forced to vote for M Chirac by the unique conditions of last year's presidential elections, Mme Linard would now like to see the president "recognise the needs of all the people of the Left who voted for him".
Like a good sound beating with the metaphoricat cluebat?
Jean Graux, 70, a retired Renault factory worker, said he was there for his children and grandchildren, so that they could have the same lack of basic rights rights to a pension as he has. M Graux added: "I'm fine. But as a member of society I must defend what the workers over the years have won. We must hold on to our white elephants rights." The marchers mostly accepted that the pensions system required reform, but disagreed with the government's plans to fix it. Union leaders have called for companies to return more of their profits to workers and for the government to draft its budget to protect the current pensions scheme. But they also point to similar protests throughout Europe as evidence of a public discontent with the European Union's budgetary criteria and social model. M Pelloux said: "We are at a crossroads where we must choose between a society based on individualism or one based on a discredited authoritarian socialist pie-in-the-sky philosophy that anyone with a degree of common sense relised was nonsense from the first half of the last century solidarity within society, egoism versus solidarity." The government, which hopes to achieve a compromise on reform by the end of the month, will meet union leaders again today. Its spokesman, Jean-François Copé, said its mission was to "explain, explain, explain" that the government wanted to save rather than destroy the pensions system.
Sounds like all the explaining in the world isn't going to change the minds of these Marxist fools.
Posted by:Bulldog

#15  Yes, France has nukes. 200 of them, or thereabouts. But will they fly? And even if they fly, will they detonate as advertised?

After this many years of military budget neglect, my basic assumption would be "maybe, and probably no".
Posted by: Anonymous   2003-05-14 15:01:16  

#14  Ahem. France has NUKES. When Sharia law is instituted, there'll be hell to pay...
Posted by: Ptah   2003-05-14 14:08:27  

#13  My wife trains young people for work and 10 out of 12 said the wanted to immigrate to America. They said they loved the American way of life and hated France. What's going on here is filthy, the govt has no money and the public workers want 35 hrs and retirement at 55. The government is to blame, plain and simple. It lets 1 million people control the life 60 million. It lets the laws be made from the street. Just like the last war, where 22million people from around the world hit the streets when 6 billion didn't, and it was said that Bush was defying the people. BULL!!
Posted by: George   2003-05-14 12:52:43  

#12  This is not going to be funny when the system breaks, but if people are going to be in denial what can you say. The irony of social democracy is that it has to go hand in hand with a dynamic economy. If these people want their pensions, they better start holding out for a crash liberalization of the economy.
Posted by: Hiryu   2003-05-14 12:29:50  

#11  When, oh when is this country going to get its long-overdue comeuppance? I've read of some French reactions to September 11. I know they hoped for maximum US casualties in Iraq. Now I read that "satisfaction at the bombings in Riyadh is barely concealed" (merde in france). Someone please tell me when the French are going to get what they so richly deserve. I, for one, can't wait until the entire place becomes the Most Holy Caliphate of Francistan.
Posted by: Joe   2003-05-14 12:18:28  

#10  France has bigger problems than Communism. Their Muslim population is growing, while the birthrate of the native French is declining. This is a ticking bomb that will probably go off within the next 20 years.
Posted by: Denny   2003-05-14 11:16:13  

#9  "nurses in lab coats and masks".
And red high heels?
Posted by: Steve   2003-05-14 11:07:40  

#8  "France grinds to a halt"...

So what's the big deal? Oh, wait, it's not August yet... Well maybe they just want to institute a second national vacation month.
Posted by: Dripping sarcasm   2003-05-14 10:14:38  

#7  pasties? what is this? Vegas?
Posted by: Frank G   2003-05-14 10:11:52  

#6  One of the key indicators that the old Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse was when the people no longer took any pride in workmanship, in cleanliness (of where they lived - the country, not personal hygiene), and in personal dedication. The same is easily seen in some urban areas of the United States. Whenever a neighborhood becomes filled with trash, when graffiti covers the walls, when the people sit around doing nothing, that community will eventually collapse. Some of what is happening in France is evident of the same moral and public decay that caused Russia to collapse. There are other places in Europe with the same symptoms. Italy had them for a number of years, but now are reversing the trend. East Germany was a trash dump in the late 1980's. When there's no incentive to do a good job, and no consequences for doing a poor one, things go downhill, fast. If I were a Frenchman observing what I see happening, I'd want to immigrate - immediately!
Posted by: Old Patriot   2003-05-14 10:11:41  

#5  Regine Linard, 45, a nurse from a Paris hospital, said that yesterday's protest was about much more than pension reform. "It is about the European conception of society.

Oops! There they go speaking for the rest of Europe again. Such a bad habit.
Posted by: g wiz   2003-05-14 09:40:44  

#4  Is it really grinding to a halt if you go from nearly immobile to immobile?
Posted by: Chuck   2003-05-14 09:20:51  

#3  "France Grinds To A Halt". I believe this happens about every 2 weeks.
Posted by: tu3031   2003-05-14 08:33:43  

#2  I was at the parade yesterday. It was like a party. Literally, the whole communist party was there. These lazy bastards are holding the French hostage. It's really the French govts fault they let them do it. But in truth it is all coming to an end. Currently one in four workers is public. After denationalization of the companies it will be much lower. That is what they are truly afraid of. The public workers here (the marxist minoriety) control the government. But they know with the EU reforms it will come to an end, because every country (including France) has to align with those free market changes. France can nolonger be a communist country. The EU is actually pushing for some very good measures, but the Marxist and the Mafia are opposed.
Posted by: George   2003-05-14 04:55:44  

#1  One of the key indicators that the old Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse was when the people no longer took any pride in workmanship, in cleanliness (of where they lived - the country, not personal hygiene), and in personal dedication. The same is easily seen in some urban areas of the United States. Whenever a neighborhood becomes filled with trash, when graffiti covers the walls, when the people sit around doing nothing, that community will eventually collapse. Some of what is happening in France is evident of the same moral and public decay that caused Russia to collapse. There are other places in Europe with the same symptoms. Italy had them for a number of years, but now are reversing the trend. East Germany was a trash dump in the late 1980's. When there's no incentive to do a good job, and no consequences for doing a poor one, things go downhill, fast. If I were a Frenchman observing what I see happening, I'd want to immigrate - immediately!
Posted by: Old Patriot   5/14/2003 10:11:41 AM  

00:00