Public Service Strikes in France
Lately I’ve realized that many people in the US do not realize that France is going through strikes in the fields of medicine, transportation, and education (in the very least). There are few links I can find that relate to these strikes, especially the one with the schools. In case any of you don’t know, I am spending a semester studying French, so I can give you some inside pictures if you need them.
My school is one of those affected by the strike.
Here you can see the front doors to the school have been blocked. This is the case with many other parts of the school, which look like this.
and through these doors is the filtered entrance to the school.
Why are they doing this?
-Because the reforms include privatizing universities where they can take tuition and donations. They believe that this will create inequality of the students by providing to a few rich students in a rich school while the rest of them are poor. This is a basic belief of French people that the purpose of a school is to reduce inequalities.
How did I get in?
Some schools are completely blocked, but my school is filtered. This means that French citizens who take classes here cannot get in, but since I am here to learn French, they can see that on my student card. When I come in the morning, they check the student cards at a certain door. The second day of the blockade, they went to each classroom to make sure that we were all foreigners and not here for a subject other than French. I was out of school for a day because of the blockade and their explanation was that they wanted to force people to vote, and that would be an exception.
For the other strikes, the railroad workers want better pension and retirement. The doctors and nurses want well, I suppose more money too but I really don’t know the answer there. There was a ‘save our secu’ demonstration a few weeks ago. The teachers went on strike on Tuesday (except the French teachers) even though the students had already pretty much closed the university. I’ve even read about a unified strike movement, but for now it is just an inconvenience.
