La Grève Nationale

What a country! Tomorrow, most of France will be on strike. Trains, buses, and national air flights, will all be on "strike" schedules, even school teachers are participating. The unions for all these services have banded together for this national gripe day. The papers and news services have spent most of today making sure that everyone knows it's coming. Sarkozy tried to ameliorate the effects of this type of thing on students last year, passing a "minimum" state of staffing that schools are supposed to maintain during a strike (so that parents can actually go to work, if they need to). But the news is reporting that most schools are telling parents that there will be no teachers at school tomorrow.

Why are they striking? Because they don't think they are being paid enough, or at least as much as President Sarkozy promised they would. The unified "national" strike is fairly unusual, but according to a poll, 75% of those asked said they thought that the day-long strike was "justified." The local paper here, Nice-Matin, questioned whether or not such a strike made sense in a time of financial crisis. Apparently, according to the French populace, the answer is yes.

I think I will go down to Place Massena tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. and check out the Niçoise unions as they participate in this truly French tradition. Vive la France!