Something I have come to love and admire from the French is that they stand up to what they believe in and what they feel to be unjust. Whatever the problem may be, the French, Parisians in particular, will march down the roads with microphones chanting and trying to make a stand. It is such a common thing here in France and Paris that our professor has even referred to it as a regional sport.
Les greves, as they call them in French, are common events in Paris. There are strikes for everything: the metro (transportation), the big companies such as TOTAL (the big oil company), and even teacher's strikes. Nowadays in San Diego or anywhere in CA, teachers would be scared to strike in fear of being another statistic in the unemployment sector. Yes, it's true we do have strikes and protests but nothing comes close to the ones held here in Paris.
Our strikes in California are most commonly referred to the ones we are most used to, the supermarket strikes for unjust treatment and benefits. As for the teachers of CA, they have suffered quite a bit in the last few years because of budget cuts and we often see these protests happen after many teachers get let go.
Like in Paris, these strikes are also organized but not nearly as elaborate as the ones in Paris. For one thing the strikes in CA don't usually involve a large number of people. The ones I am used to seeing are the supermarket strikes that are held outside the big food chains such as Ralph's and Vons. The workers congregate together to accumulate a total of maybe 10 to 30 workers max and hold signs putting shame on the supermarket. They do this to try to ward off business from the supermarket, passing out flyers, holding big banners, and chanting slogans.
Never have I ever seen such a demonstration like the ones in Paris for a strike. It was a normal day on a Tuesday not to long ago, I went to school hearing the slogans and chanting in the background and when I returned back to my residence, 5 hours later, the people were still marching down Avenue Daumesnil. My roommate and I decided to go see the commotion and found so many young people joining in on the cause. This particular strike had to do with the recent government decisions about school and work conditions. I started to think about SDSU's increase of tuition and chuckled because the French (Parisians) would never allow that to happen.
I was really surprised at the organization and the extent of the strike. It ran from La Nation to La Republique. I found out that that was a popular and symbolic road to march on. We went to go see a real Parisian strike. The whole thing resembled more of a parade than anything else. It was crowded with people exercising their right of freedom of speech. The roads were closed and so there were traffic jams before getting to those blocked roads. It was chaos at those intersections because there were very little police trying to block the cars.
The march had cars with speakers and people chanting with microphones hooked up to the speakers. They had balloons, signs, flyers, and banners. There were people of all ages, men with their children strapped on their chest, little kids walking alongside their parents, teenagers "sticking it to the man." It was entertaining to see all of these people congregate together to speak up against the government.
Since I have been here, I have heard of maybe 7 strikes that have occurred in Paris, most of which have not affected me in any way. Les greves in Paris are part of their culture and will probably remain. It's definitely something to experience while staying in Paris.
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