A Note taped on the entry to a primary school in Juan-les-Pins announcing a strike last May.
Strikes seem to be part of French life. The approach is you strike first then negotiate. Strikes have impacted everyone with blocked roads, closed schools, delayed flights or no mail.
Most US media covering this recent strike attributed the cause to the proposed shift in retirement age from 60 to 62. Mon dieu! We have already heard about the French law, now out of favor, that allows a 35-hour work week reimbursed as 39 hours. Here, if we have a job, we feel we are working more than 40 hours per week but are paid for 35. C’est l’amérique!
An informal inquiry to a few friends provided a range of perspectives. Overall, more people live longer, and the current generation of workers and companies have to pay for retirees. My friend in Toulouse accurately points out that France needs to “adapt the retirement age to life expectancy.” Other problems concern what is known as “les charges socials,” or social charges (or percentages that are withdrawn from your salary for health, unemployement. . . ),which consume a hefty portion of a salary and make employers reluctant to take on additional personnel. And then, of course, the perpetual problem of distribution of wealth. . . . But even with reform, the situation will decline again in the next 10 years, and everyone fears working to the age of 75, just like in the States.
Another friend, who divides his time between Paris and the South of France, pointed to the French sense of “entitlement” to work less and gain more welfare. It’s no longer a country of birthrights and aristocracy. The young people marching in the streets, clamoring for jobs and a fairly early retirement age, may not realize they will be footing the bill.
A retired educator attributes most of the problem to the pension plans, the loopholes in tax laws and the large fortunes.
Three perspectives, but all individuals agreed the strike and violence would subside with the start of vacation around the Toussaint (All Saints Day). And it has.
With the guarantee of minimum public service (e.g., transport) and the lack of pay for those on strike, today’s “manifestations” appear to be weakened strains of what they were years ago.
My personal experience with strikes goes something like this—for years I was oblivious to many strikes unless they affected me personally (air flights, mail services or public transportation). Awareness came later.
November 1996—I was teaching and the kids were in school in the research park of Sophia Antipolis. The French truck drivers blocked many roads and fuel depots to negotiate higher wages and retirement at 55. Given that we lived within walking distance, the strike didn’t affect us but it did affect some of my students who used public transportation. And we did get stuck in a blockage of slow-moving trucks (opération escargot) and watched the gas gauge decline. Freezing weather forced us to keep the car running to stay warm.
When I returned to France in early May 2008, I planned to pick up my shipment at the port of Marseille in late May. However, the strike of public sector and transport workers translated to mean my possessions were somewhere on an offshore vessel awaiting to be unloaded. I waited until July 2, somewhat inconvenienced by the projects and clothing that remained . . . just out of reach.
The strike may be for social reform, but it leaves many members of the public feeling somewhat grouchy with the inconvenience.
And many of my friends have great credentials but no jobs. . . .Maybe retirement is a bit premature, n'est-ce pas!
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