La greve aujourd'hui. Une grande greve. Le plus grande depuis que je suis arrive a Paris.
It's a strike day today all across France for all types of public transportations, which include trains, metro, bus and tram. Not totally paralyzed, as those companies, under the French law, are still obliged to deliver minimum services to public during the strikes. The reality was the guaranteed services were way too minimum for people to do their normal business, i.e. below 20% of the regular service, which means people would have to wait more than half an hour for your transports. Yet, some transportation means, like tram, were completely dead! Bus services were not at all guaranteed (and I did not see a single bus crossing our street today).
This is the largest strike since I arrived in Paris. There had been some small strikes here and there with no significant impact on most people. But this time, I myself got affected too. Although I could have opted to use Velib' (bike) as an alternative solution to go to work, I decided to work from home, instead (fortunately I did not schedule any meeting today). Better stay away from the troubles. Lucky enough, I read from the news that the number of Velib users doubled to 27,000 this morning, which could mean tough competitions to get one bike, unless you started your day really early. My biggest worry was that unable to get a bike on the way home. That would have been a disastrous long journey home. This afternoon, I saw quite a long queue on the Velib' station near where I live.
The worst is yet to come. It seems the Labour Union may prolong the strikes until tomorrow. We'll see....
What triggered the strike? The new French government under Nicolas Sarkozy has recently announced the plan to change the retirement plans for a special regime (group) of public services employees who work in areas that are considered dangerous, e.g. train or bus drivers, gas or electricity workers. Under the current plan, that group of employees are eligible to opt for retirement as early as the age of 5o. Now, Mr. Sarkozy would like to erase this privilege for the sake of egalite for everyone, which means they would not have any choice but to retire at 65, like everyone else in France. In addition, they will change the way they calculate the pension plan for those people.
In 1995, the Prime Minister back then, Alan Juppe, touched the same issue which resulted in a huge strike and demonstations on the street. People managed to make him step down. Will it be the same this time? I personnally doubt it for several reasons (I am not trying to be political here). Firstly, Sarkozy has a good reason by arguing that he was eligibly elected to lead this country for a change that was eagerly wished for by his voters, which means most people had approved this plan during his presidential campaign. Secondly, according to the survey, 65% of the French say that the strike this time was not well justified, which means that privileged group of employees receive less supports from their fellow countrymen than they did 12 years back.
Enough for the strike. Back to rugby. Tomorrow, France will play Argentine again to aim for the 3rd place. Last week, the England made Les Bleus look like a team of kindergarden kids (perhaps it's too much of an exaggeration). A huge disappointment, to be exact. They did not play as well as they had when they beat All Blacks. Far below par! Anyway, England also had to thank the incredible Wilkinson for the win.
Back to Sarkozy. While he was faced with a big strike today, the rumor of his separation from his wife, Cecilia, had been the headlines of the week. Historically, they had been separated before for a little while. The media speculates this time may be the end of it. It started with the facts that Cecilia has disappeared from all official protocols for the last few weeks. Anyway, who cares? I put it here because I noticed an interesting phenomena. Madame Segolene Royal (the female president candidate from the Socialist Party) also parted her way from her husband, not long after her loss to Sarkozy. What the hell is wrong with those politicians? If they cannot even keep their families together, how could they boast about family values at their campaigns? Better yet, why should they even be allowed to lead a country?
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