Traffic Jams So Big They Become Fourth Dimensional

Oil Companies Mum on Windfall Profits Due to Hours of Idle Motors; Authorities Mum on Air Pollution

It's hard to tell if this is a view of moving traffic; whatever it is, there is a lot of it.

The Quai d'Orsay, beside the Seine, is the location of one of Paris' main westbound traffic routes, and closing this forced traffic into the maze of the 6th arrondissement, or north across the river towards the Louvre and the rue de Rivoli.

Radio FIP reported this morning the partial opening of one line of the Metro, the line seven. However, striking RATP workers cut the power several times, and the RATP abandoned the attempt to reestablish service. FIP also said earlier that the daily 'bouchons' had again lengthened. Evening news showed passengers saluting the arrival on a Metro train on line one; but if service there was, it was either erratic or phantom.

About 10 percent of buses - perhaps 130 in all - were reported to be circulating in Paris, but the CGT and the FO unions have called for a continuation of the strikes. In fact, new votes to continue the strike are held by many if not all union locals every morning. Something like 19 SNCF locals, out of more than 300, voted this morning to return to work. All of the substitute emergency services of buses and boat-buses in the Paris region are managing to carry about 1/8th of the normal public service volume of passengers.

Many strikers and their leaders, in sound-bites on A2 TV news tonight, expressed frustration and bitterness with the government, which seems in no particular hurry to talk seriously; with meetings scheduled for the middle of next week at the earliest. Therefore it seems certain that the Saturday all-union demonstration called for jointly by the CGT and FO unions, will be held in Paris as planned.

The railings keep cars from parking here, but not thousands of bikes; quite a lot of them only a few weeks old.

Today was the 21st day since the SNCF rail strike started. I would guess that about 99.9 percent of everybody would like it to be over tomorrow morning in time to go to work. In the end it will be this same percentage that will pay every centime of the cost of this dispute, and the longer it goes on the bigger the bill is going to be.

I only mention this last thought, in case you are a visitor to Paris next year, and wonder why a really tiny little cup of strong black cafe costs $1.20, tip included.

Return to Richard Erickson's Paris Journal

Updated 12/95