Parisians Coping With 14th Day of Strike

Extraordinary Exertions Required for Daily Living

Meanwhile, car pools are better organized, either by neighbors, or from within places of work. Full cars, while reducing total amount of traffic jams, allow fewer opportunities for hitch-hikers. Win some, lose some.

What do the infamous 'gnomes of Zurich' think about all this? The opposite of what you would think, of course. While France moves towards economic stand-still, the Paris Bourse recorded its fourth consecutive rise today. Internationally, the French Franc is holding firm, after losing 10 centimes last week.

Further confounding conventional wisdom, the internal airlines - if they can get off the ground - are not charging higher fares. Quite the opposite: they've reduced their fares to be competitive with the non-operating TGV and they've put on more flights.

Today was the day of the big demonstrations throughout France. While the Paris demo was estimated to have a relatively modest 60,000 participants, between 700,000 and a million took to the rues and avenues in about 200 cities and towns all over the country; in many cases breaking local records.

Polling organizations are working full-time to find out what the French are thinking - no need to ask what they are thinking about - and it seems to be consistently 55 to 60 percent of those polled that are in favor of the strikes. Since the French are seldom united on any subject, this is a solid majority. It also may be an indication that the amount of people working in the public sector is proportionally larger than in other countries. If that is the case, then more people have an direct economic interest in the eventual outcome.

In Paris, this is one of three or four RATP buses cruising the capital searching for homeless to yake to overnight shelters. Even though the busses are on strike, some things cannot be allowed to stop.

In a CNN report on the strike tonight, it was claimed that public sector workers in France make $200 a week more than public sector workers in Great Britain. CNN conceded that French workers pay higher social security rates, while paying lower income taxes; but forgot entirely to mention the highest value-added taxes in the community. CNN stated that a French public sector worker has an average pay of $752 a week, which translates as 15,000 francs a month - and this is gross salary - that would be about 9000 francs after social deductions. If it were true, it would translate into $1800 a month. Besides not being true, everything bought with this cash-on-hand is taxed at 5.5 to 20.6 percent. And even if it were true, can anybody believe that a family of four can live in the Paris area on... $1800 a month? If it were true. About half true is more like it.

There are few strikes in the private sector. But since many areas of the economy depend on the public sector for logistic and service support, if this is withdrawn, the private sector may have no option but to shut down. For example: many firms have introduced 'on time delivery' of... component parts, and if these parts do not arrive, then production stops. The German army has lost an entire panzer division in this way. It is 'parked' on a SNCF railroad siding somewhere in eastern France.

The hand-lettered sign outside the school this morning, says, "jeudi 7 decembre ecole ferme ecole en greve.

In normal times, around the beginning of the year the drums roll for the homeless and hungry of Paris. This year the homeless are really out in the cold, as their normal refuge in the warm underground of the Metro is denied. This is a double whammy as the Metro is often the locale where they sell newspapers, do performances, and carrying on their marginal businesses to make a little money. All the normal organizations that run emergency food centers appear to be operating but what is lacking this year is the usual promotion they get on TV - drowned as it is by other news. Another consequence: no TV promo, no donations and if there were any, no way to deliver them either in person or by post.

Showing that the strikes are not complete by any means, this school on the other hand, was open this morning.

Somebody is missing a beat here. TV is not on strike and neither is the electronic banking service of the Poste - most post offices are open - it's the sorting centers that are out. I haven't seen any call on TV for donations to be funneled through the Poste to the organizations - but I could have missed it as I am not watching 15 channels 24 hours a day.

The Ville de Paris is scrambling to find alternate lodging for the homeless and the RATP has kicked in with the loan of four buses - and a team of striking bus drivers are driving them - to go around to various collection points in the capital, pick them up and take them wherever available - plus bring them back in the morning

Illegally parked cars in Paris have been more or less ignored for a week, but the situation has gotten so rowdy that they are impeding the vast amount of pedestrians - to the point where people have to dart into clogged, but moving, traffic to get around obstacles on the sidewalks. With tempers getting shorter by the day - well... so the city has announced that if a car is parked in true 'cowboy' style it will be hauled away - and think of the difficulty in getting it back because the city's 'stupid-parker' carparks are a long way from anyplace.

Supposedly spontaneous 'Right-to-work' "activists" seemed to have abandoned efforts made late last week to gather names for 'petitions' demanding 'right to work.' People who are not on strike are struggling hard to get to work, strikers are on picket lines, so the only people left to sign these petitions are retirees or people who don't have to work anyway.

Nevertheless, polls do show that 70 percent want some 'minimum' service to continue. Usually, during ordinary run-if-the-mill strikes - often lasting only a day - the strikers permit a 'minimum' service, that while inconvenient, is not impossible like the 'total' situation these days.

Finally, there are two main questions that are on French minds these days: How wide will the strikes spread and how long will it take for them to be over.

It does not appear that the government feels there is much urgency in ending the strikes - 'emergency' meetings are not only rare, they are announced several days in advance. The polls and the demos seem to show that it is ordinary workers who are leading their unions with this, and the major union demand is quite clear: negotiations. The government's unwavering answer so far has been: take it and like it.

One can only wonder if anybody connected to the government has ever heard of labor-management relations.

The unions have called for the next all-in-one national demonstration for the coming Tuesday. Stay tuned.

Return to Richard Erickson's Paris Journal

Updated 12/95