Journée de Grève (France on strike!)

Quand il y a une grève en France, personne ne s'en aperçoit. (When there's a strike in France, no one notices.)
--Nicolas Sarkozy

Well, I seriously doubt Sarko and friends could have ignored the strikes and demonstrations on Thursday, January 29th. The post office, the train, auto and metal workers, the hospitals, the high schools, the universities, the students and more all turned up to protest the French government's response to the economic crisis as well as the so-called reforms it has proposed. An estimated 500,000 of us marched in the biggest demonstration I've ever participated in. And that was in Paris alone where not everyone could make it because the trains (on strike) were running on limited service.

I'm not going to pretend to know all the reasons that all the different workers are on strike. I know that in the private sector, a lot of people have been laid off because of the economic crisis or they've had their hours cut way back with wages that are impossible to live on. Nothing has been done to help them. The public sector is being threatened with privatization because the government claims it doesn't have the money to continue to fund public services, including hospitals, schools and the post office. Of course, this same government, who can't spare a penny for the regular joe, managed to find billions of euros to bail out the banks who caused the current economic crisis in the first place. French workers of all trades are deciding it's time to stand up and let their government know that they've had enough. And they're right.

Education is one of the major areas under attack. At all levels it is facing budget cuts which have led to huge staff and faculty cuts. To make matters worse, Sarkozy has decided that French universities should rely on private rather than public funds. What he's really saying is that students should pay much higher tuition rates. Everyone knows that this spells disaster for anyone seeking an education, especially for those with lower incomes. As someone who is unhappy about having to pay back student loans in the years to come, I will of course fight for other people to have the right to an affordable education.

Sarko also wants professor evaluation to change. For those who may not know, professor evaluation as it stands is stringent; profs don't sit around patting each other on the back and telling each other "good job." Under the new plan, a (government-appointed?) committee will do evalutions. Profs who are not considered "good researchers" will be given much heavier teaching loads than those who are. Obviously, teaching more classes will not afford these so-called poor researchers time to do any research, but this doesn't seem to be a concern for the government.

These are just a few of the major education reforms Sarkozy is calling for, but they're enough for me to be on the side of the teachers and the students. Even if I'm not sure that I myself will be able to strike--I cringe at the thought of being a scab, I will show my solidarity with the courageous people who are on strike. There are more manifs to come, and I will be there to at least add to the number of demonstrators. If the students go on strike to defend their right to an education, I will support them however I can.

This has been a difficult post to write. There is so much more to say on this subject, and I've hardly done it justice here. In any case, I hold great hope that by taking to the streets, by disrupting the system, by making it impossible for Sarko and his cronies to continue to ignore us, we can resist these reactionary "reforms." It's worked in recent years, and it can work now if we all stick together.