France is striking

It’s been a while since our last update, but we are still here!

And in case you haven’t heard, much of France is on strike. December 5 was dubbed Black Thursday when schools, hospitals, trains, police stations, all closed while most government employees went on strike. The main grievance is about the current government’s plans to push back on pension reforms. Currently there are about 42 different retirement pension regimes and the plan is to simplify these, and in the process pushing back the retirement age for many professions. So the French are not happy.

Strikes here are more than just a protest march or stop-work meeting at the local football stadium before adjourning to the pub. An unwritten rule in France is that if the police count a million people marching during a protest, the government will drop its plans. Given that the police are also protesting, we wonder how accurate their counting will be.

In Cherbourg they reported about 5,500 or 8,000, depending on who you believe. One of the fun things that the protestors like to do is block the roads. They do this by either blocking access with large trucks, or they drag big wooden pallets to the centre of the road and then set fire to them. So this means that nobody can get through to drive to work, deliver goods or services or whatever else you may want to do. Petrol stations have run out of fuel so even if you could get through, there is no petrol anyway. It’s surprising how this appears to be quite acceptable and nobody is unsympathetic to the protestors.

All this affects many Australians living here who have travel plans over Christmas. Trains to Paris and connecting flights are a mess. We are getting the ferry to UK and then over to Germany via Holland. Good old Clio should get us there. I have to leave a few days before Lee so I am getting the ferry to Poole and then planned to get a train to London but guess what? There are trains strikes in England right through December.

There’s not much else to report here. Weather is cold and wet with some very serious gale force winds coming in from the English Channel. But occasionally we get some clear skies and treated to a sunrise like this.