Understanding the average Jeau

The French are deeply shocked that in New York the transit unions might face legal problems for bringing a great city to its knees at Christmastime. Several people have remarked to me how glad they are to live in a country where people are free to strike. One has to defend the acquis sociaux [the status quo]. That's why, as one commenter said on Guillemette's weblog, the French are not yet all part-timers sleeping in their cars!

I have often thought that the real test of whether you feel at home in a foreign country (or maybe even your own) is whether you understand the most ordinary citizen and his or her beliefs, prejudices and tastes. By this test, I am very American. I do understand rednecks and people who support the NRA, hillbillies and people who don't believe in evolution, working-class New Yorkers, policemen, messengers, grocery clerks. I grew up with them, I worked with them, I lived with them. A lot of my American friends from the east or west coasts really do not get these people. That's why they believe Hillary Clinton is a viable Presidential candidate....(I don't know anyone from the South who does).

I even feel I understand the ordinary German (or at least Bavarian) to some extent. In a lot of ways, Germans are more like Americans than anyone else in Europe. What you see is what you get in Germany, with an extra dose of lack of irony. The young Germans are well-traveled and tolerant and as cosmopolitan as anyone in the world. The British are still largely a mystery to me. They don't say what they mean. Le perfide Albion! One of my American friends who has lived many years in London gave me the following advice when I had to take care of a problem over there: "Just talk r-e-e-e-eally slo-o-o-o-owly and smile a lot. They're terrified of dealing with American women." (That's one way to put it.)

With the years I have spent in France, I have learned a lot about the average French man or woman. I know why Le Pen came in second in that election (it wasn't anti-Semitism). I know why the jeunes rioted in November (it wasn't Islam). I even love the quirks and kindnesses of the French. They will step up to help you, break the rules for you,  treat you like a human being, the way Americans won't  ("I'm sorry, but that's the RULE."). But I never will understand the French profoundly, the way I deeply understand my compatriotes in Wyoming or Louisiana. The strikes bring it out in me. My father raised me never to cross a picket line. But things go too far in France, where all the strikers are public servants who serve people a lot poorer than they are. How can they not see that they're hurting their own people, the future of their own jeunes, employment in their own country, with these strikes? Yet the strikes have immense support here. People just sigh and go on with their lives. Il faut défendre les acquis sociaux! Yes, but will the Chinese and Indians let them?
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Here's some graffiti I saw on a mailbox today. The first person wrote: "Islam=AIDS" and the second wrote: "That's a new one!"

Comments

[The Bold Soul]

Really interesting. I love getting the perspective on this from someone who can look at both sides. As someone who lives in New Jersey, within commuting distance from New York City (but who fortunately does not have to actually commute), the strike has been big news around here. You inspired me to write up my own thoughts on the strike.. which finally ENDED just several hours ago, to the relief of thousands of exhausted, cold commuters!

[Linda]

I guess I will never understand the French and their love of strikes. I get so irritated that the strike of one group will totally disrupt the city. One of my greatest irritations is to go to a bus stop planning to go somewhere across the city and finding a sign saying that the bus won't be coming because of blockage of the route by some strike or another. It happens so often, not just occasionally. Just drives me crazy. On another subject, the French don't understand the American Puritan ethic that I have found to be bone deep inside me. I can't get rid of it. I will never go topless on a beach, I will never be comfortable at a French doctor's office. My French husband is totally puzzled by this, but there you go.