Les Greves en France
France has a history of having “grèves.” For us American students, we have turned it into the English verb “grèving” (Used in a sentence such as, “Oh, the French are “grèving” again”) because it has happened so often here. As I have learned in my French history class, the French as a whole LOVE their right to go on strike. A grève is basically a strike. Throughout history, this has been their way of keeping the government in check, just to make sure they know that it’s the people that rule, the government is just there for show. As our teacher explained, in 1936, after a series of angry strikes for more social rights, the people of France finally elected a socialist government. Now the values of socialism, workers rights and the like, is exactly what they wanted but within a week of electing their president (Leon Blume) they had a massive strike just to let the government know that even though they had been elected, they were not in the clear yet. Talk about pressure! So when we got to school way back in January we were told that probably throughout the course of the semester, there would be a strike that would affect the transportation system. All I could think was, “Great! I’ve just arrived in a foreign country, I’m living with a foreign family far away from school, and now I’m learning that there could be days when I physically can’t make it to school because the French will just shut down the transportation system.” Well with my luck, it happened about the third week of school on the day that I was going to have my first day of work at my internship. So not only was I worried about starting work all in French, but then I had to worry about the fact that I might not even be able to MAKE it there. Well after a long discussion with my advisor at school, it turned out I could easily walk to my internship but there was no way I was getting home by walking. The only thing that saved me was Nicolas Sarkozy. Since becoming the president, Sarkozy has changed a few laws about striking. (Yet another reason why the French seem to hate him – his current approval rating is at 36% according to The Economist.) Striking can no longer just happen. The government must be informed of the strike, why it is occurring, and whoever is striking must provide a minimal amount of service. Therefore if the transportation system is going to go on strike, not ALL of the trams and busses have to be running and they don’t have to come as frequently but nevertheless there are some basic services provided. After consulting with the CTS website, I found that the bus I needed was supposed to run every 30 minutes that day. Well that is great, but that doesn’t really tell you when the bus is going to come and if you just miss the bus you would be stuck waiting for a half hour. So to get to school in the morning by 9:00 I had to figure out when I thought the bus was going to come. I figured if it went every half hour then at the end of my line a bus would be leaving at 8:30. Since I am about three or four stops from the end of the line, I figured it would take at least 5 minutes if not more to get to my stop and with the trip taking 20-25 minutes, if I was at the bus stop by just after 8:30 I could make it to school on time. Then to get home from work, if the bus came every 30 minutes and that stop is about seven or eight stops from the end of the line on the other end, if I got out of my internship at 6:00 on the dot, I could make it to my bus stop by 6:10 to hopefully catch the bus to go home. This is the kind of planning that has to go into strikes for us commoners who just want to get to school on time. Fortunately for me my math skills served me well and I made it to school and home from my internship in a wonderfully timely fashion. I was quite proud.
Aside from strikes on the public transportation systems, everyone else kind of gets “grève fever” and hops on grève bandwagon. Before you know it the students are on strike, the teachers are on strike, workers are on strike….it’s absolute insanity! My host mom told me the two times it has happened that she would not be striking but most of her colleagues would be. It’s all very confusing to us Americans.
Another big issue is the educational system itself. Sarkozy has been making significant reforms to the system especially for the universities. In January of 2009, all the universities in Strasbourg became in a way combined into one “University of Strasbourg.” They were originally different schools like for technology and so on but now they are one. The students are extremely perturbed by this and all over France they have striked multiple times which angers the administrations and it’s just a vicious cycle. The university has tried to make it all better by launching giant campaigns of advertising saying “La Université de Strasbourg. Elle est unique.” (The University of Strasbourg. She is unique.) All semester, the branch of the university that is near the Syracuse center has had a big sign on it that says, “Elle est unique….elle est EN GRÈVE.” (She is unique…she is ON STRIKE) This is yet another demonstration of the student’s anger at Sarkozy’s policies. However just before the NATO summit when President Obama came, they took down the sign so as to make it look prettier for all the politicians coming to town but it was up the Monday after.
Speaking of the NATO summit, I’m sure some of you have seen the fiasco that occurred when this event took place. The week leading up to the summit was pure madness in Strasbourg. We all had to carry our passports around because if you were stopped by the police and were unable to produce proper identification then you risked getting arrested. There were police everywhere. They patrolled the streets all over town just staring everyone down as you walked by. I felt like a criminal just trying to walk to school. The Thursday before the summit (it was to begin on Friday) there were supposedly bomb threats made for the train station and the riots/protesting began already. Friday morning I was supposed to go to go to the train station to go to Paris with my art history class. This was probably the scariest prospect ever because even though the threats on the station were proved to be false, I knew there would tons of police and I was scared of getting stopped or not being allowed to get on my train. Fortunately I didn’t get stopped but there were four police at every door to the station. Once I got on the train I was off for the weekend and heard nothing of the events in Strasbourg until I returned on Sunday. This is all going to relate back to striking don’t worry…
When I got back to the train station on Sunday night, I of course inquired as to how the weekend turned out in Strasbourg. My host mom was very surprised that I hadn’t heard but proceeded to tell me about all the mayhem that had ensued. It was projected that there were to be anywhere between 30,000-50,000 NATO protestors in Strasbourg for the weekend. This was an accurate estimate. They were also all supposed to be contained within one area of the city, just outside where they couldn’t get into the center of town where all the famous people would be. That part of town happened to be right around the corner from my house. My host mom said that among the peaceful protestors that were just there for peace, there was the “Black Block” which she described as a group of anti-capitalists from Germany that tend to stir up a lot of trouble wherever they go. They just like to go to protests where there’s supposed to be peace and just try and shake things up a little. Well that is certainly what they did in Strasbourg. They decided they were really angry about the capitalist leaders in Strasbourg and essentially threw what I can only call a hissy fit in my part of town. My host mom drove me around after she picked me up from the train station to show me the damage. At the tram stop right by my house, these angry protestors had dug up bricks out of the sidewalk and used them as projectiles at both police and advertisements. There is a sort of island between Strasbourg and Kehl (Germany) which is where most of this damage occurred. Between my house and Kehl, they had basically destroyed every advertisement in sight on both the bus stops and billboards. However this was nothing compared to what they did to building structures. On this little island area there was a Hotel Ibis, a large building with a post office, pharmacy, and bank, as well as the old passport control building. These three buildings were burnt down by the Black Block. There were pictures of this in newspapers all over the world. I have a few pictures of the aftermath. Fortunately no one died in these attacks but it’s sad that they had to happen in the first place. I asked my host mom why they had been burned and she said that the police and in essence left this area as a sacrifice for the rest of Strasbourg. They figured they would let the Black Block and other violent protestors do their damage in one part of town, away from the politicians, and it would keep them happy so they wouldn’t try to breach the police line to go into town. She also said there were protestors wandering the streets all over the area near our house.
I’m so glad I wasn’t home for all of this and that I was safely tucked away in Paris where all was calm. But it all goes back to my original discussion about strikes. I know that protesting NATO is not quite striking a University but the point is that there is just something very different about the European culture regarding these kinds of subjects. I know that there are violent riots in the United States, case and point Toledo when the neo-Nazis where invited, but not like in Europe. London saw much worse things than Strasbourg. It’s just insane to me and the rest of us students here. Anyway, this is all just a part of European life that you have to get used to when you live here. There is a history of revolutions and overthrowing governments and powers that we have never seen in the United States which I believe accounts for these feelings of protests and strikes. It’s confusing but c’est la vie!
I hope this has given you a little insight into the world of Europe! Gotta love it!!
