I have received several emails about the recent labor unrest in France. Of course, given my limited language skills and dependence upon British journalism, I am no more a source of information on the real issue than you are, but I can tell you how it is interfering or not, with tourism. There are some good overviews out there, like this one in Bloomberg.
Last week friends were visiting from Columbus Ohio and we were in Paris on three days and evenings, but not late into the night. While there is a strong police presence, there were very few signs of protestors, unless we were outside the French Senate building where apparently there was preparation for a scheduled rally. If you know me, you know I was chomping at the bit to get in there and see what was going on.
I am amazed at the reported sizes of the rallies. The police reported 30,000 and the demonstrators reported 120,000 for a spontaneous rally - (now we all know the truth is in the middle)and 75,000 people is pretty dang impressive. I would give my eye teeth to organize a rally where 75K showed up. The newspaper said 1.5 million showed up at an organized rally on Saturday last week - holy cow! Pat said the unions showed up at his plant and bussed workers to a Tuesday afternoon rally. All this is very exciting for me, especially because it is about fighting for workers'rights in a country where the actual union membership is low, but obviously the French people understand the value of weekends, pensions, health insurance, paid vacation, etc. and the unlikelihood of getting those benefits without a plan or the ability to bargain for it.
Anyway, so we did see about 15 protestors outside the senate building on Thursday. The police had shut down the nearby metro line, likely to keep the masses from getting to the senate building. We were inconvenienced in that we had to then walk through the area where the protestors were obviously going to be demonstrating, and we could feel the energy and excitement. Tee heee heee, I loved it. We walked across the Seine (okay we used a bridge)towards Place de Concorde where I am sure the authors of the recent senate bill are hoping they are not beheaded, even if in the figurative sense.
And that was it - in three very full days in Paris. I saw the occasional group of two or three young women on the subway carrying their signs and looking tired but excited by their actions. They had "NON CPE" written on their faces or signs. On Hausmann Street, the great shopping district, it was crowded with shoppers and business as usual. At the Eiffel Tower there were tourists as far as the eye could see, but no protests. At Sacre Couer, the view of the city was only hampered by the crowds and the rain. We saw, what one of my visitors was sure was a gang of protestors "students" as they are being called here, but I think this was probably a group of spirited young men out for the evening.
The only real student demonstration that we saw was when we emerged from the Metro St. Michel (Ou est le Metro St. Michel?) on Friday night at about 6 p.m. We saw a huge crowd gathered. It was raining pretty steadily, there were no cops in sight. There were sounds being broadcasted over some kind of microphone system. It was a 10 piece band made up of a group of people singing, and playing their instruments with a great sound and even greater enthusiasm. We wandered along, watched more and more tour busses unload, despite the rain, and saw the police coming back to the station at the end of their shift. We sat in a pizza place overlooking Notre Dame and had a cheese plate and dessert with our coffee and tea. No cars were burnt, no tourists were caught up in a melee, and even at the Sorbonne Cluny metro stop, all was quiet.
Now next week may be a grand strike...I will check back with you then.
