From yesterday at 8 p.m. till tomorrow morning at 8 a.m., the trains of France are on a nationwide strike. I am tempted to say "yet again." The Paris streets are full of the cars of exasperated suburban commuters.
This morning I heard the SNCF union leader, Didier Le Reste, explain the strike on the radio. For once, the interviewer did not sound sympathetic to the mouvement social. I can scarcely express how unusual that is in the media.
"You have announced 482 préavis de grève in one year," he said. "Isn't there some other way the cheminots [train workers] can protest?" Then he asked about why the cheminots were striking this time. "It's a little bit of everything, apparently." They especially don't like the présidente of the SNCF, Anne-Marie Idrac.
"Attention, préavis de grève does not mean a strike. It is just a warning of a possible strike. Of course, I have sympathy for the usagers [passengers]. [Yeah, yeah.] It can be irritating for them. But we are defending the rights of all workers. If we don't have a real promise of negotiations by the end of the day, we are prepared for a long strike," announced the union leader.
That would be just in time for Christmas. I guess I won't get rid of my car just yet.
À nous de vous faire préférer le train!
The SNCF slogan at the end made me laugh.
Damn strike.
Posted by: Jennifer | 08 November 2006 at 16:25
"À nous de vous faire préférer le train!"
Once with friends, we drew up a list of the most disconnected (surreal?) marketing slogans by French institutions. I remember:
- [during the massive public transport strikes of 1995] "La RATP: la meilleure façon d'avancer."
- [right after the big Crédit Agricole scandals that cost taxpayers bonbons] "Crédit Agricole: nous vous devons des comptes." Or "Crédit Agricole: le crédit, c'est notre spécialité."
Oops on my post above. It was actually Crédit Lyonnais. Apologies...
Posted by: LA Frog | 08 November 2006 at 17:33
Thanks for posting this, it helped me shake off the stress of trying to return from Marseille yesterday.
Where do you get your list of planned strikes on your sidebar?
From Sedulia: Lots of places: the radio, the newspaper, Google News and personal experience!
Posted by: Nelson | 09 November 2006 at 10:30