Test Of Wills In France
Labor unions in France have gone on strike in a show of force against President Nicolas Sarkozy's plans to reform pension rules for a small number of public service employees. The strikes so far are against the transportation sectors with the gas and electric utilities following close behind. Strikes have worked in the past when the government tried to reform various rules. This time, however, the public appears to be supporting Sarkozy.
Some of the country’s biggest train stations were eerily calm during rush hour after employees of the state-owned railway operator SNCF began an open-ended strike on Tuesday night. Paris transit workers joined the walkout this morning, shutting down key commuter lines around the capital and paralyzing parts of the Métro and bus network.
Bracing brisk November temperatures, scores of bundled up Parisians walked, biked or roller-bladed to work. Traffic in the center and on the motorway ringing the city limits, heavy at the best of times, slowed to a crawl. But in a sign that support for the strike may not be as overwhelming as the unions had hoped, some subway lines experienced fewer disruptions than expected…..
……Opinion polls suggest Mr. Sarkozy has the public on his side, and some Parisians displayed their support in original ways.
Outside the Saint Lazare station in central Paris, several bikes had small signs with anti-strike slogans clipped to their baskets, including this one: “Stop the strike. Today I pedal because of the strike and it works me up.” Across town, in the Marais neighborhood, a mother had attached a small banner to her buggy urging striking workers to stop being selfish and think about the next generation.
A small free market party under the name of “Liberal Alternative” was planning demonstrations in favor of the reform.
Sarkozy's government believes this as a must-win test of wills. Failing on this initiative will put all of the rest of the reform agenda in jeopardy. Most Parisians appear to be coping with the strike with few problems so far. That could change, as could public opinion, if the strike continues. The mood of the public indicates that they just might turn on the unions if the strike goes on. This could get interesting.
World news | Gaius Wednesday, 14 November , 2007
By Mockinbird, Wednesday, 14 November , 2007 @ 11:16 am
Go “liberal alternative”!
By sam, Wednesday, 14 November , 2007 @ 3:08 pm
This is like the writer’s strike here in the USA - hard for me to get very excited about - even if I sympathize more with Sarkozy than with the strikers. France has a long tradition of public employees striking, which probably explains the country’s poor economic performance these in recent decades. Sarkozy’s strategy has to be to take the public unions down a notch if he wants to improve economic performance. I wonder if an increase in telecommuting may have an effect, by lowering the need of employees to take mass transit. The strike is also a cautionary tale about not relying too much on mass transit to get people around. Gas may be expensive, but cars don’t go on strike.