Wednesday, November 14, 2007

The students, they strike

This has been a pretty hectic month for anyone who wants to go to classes regularly or travel by train, bus, metro or plane around the country. Due to reforms presented by the President Nicholas Sarkozy, many unions and labor groups have rallied together in order to strike. Last night (Tuesday, 11/13) at 20h 00, a good portion of the transportation employees walked out.

At my university, there have been a general blocking of all educational and administrative buildings since late last week. During this time period there have been General Assemblies almost every day to discuss the official decision to strike or not. There was a vote on Monday by the students to see if there would be a strike. 60% of those who voted against it. The classes would have been supended indefinately until a compromise could be made.

Since the vote was against the strike, students tried to go to classes on Tuesday morning but a healthy number of zealous supporters, armed with metal pipes and wooden canes, forcibly blocked the buildings. So, the president of the university shut down classes till tomorrow.

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The main issue: The government would like to start stripping the public universities of their state benefits and create a more privitized system, like that found in the United States.
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Some links to news coverage on the strikes:

BBC article
French newspaper, Ouest-France
(in French, but you can take a look at the picture to see what a General Assembly looks like.)

2 comments:

Principessa of Cervesa said...

c'est assez grave, n'est-ce pas? As tu les classes maintenant?

Katy said...

Quelque cours. C'est encore un peu agité, mais je pense que la semaine prochaine tout va faire comme d'habitude. Ne t'inquiète pas, Maman, je continue à apprendre la langue français et je n'ai pas beaucoup de soucis à propos des crédits.

Je t'aime et merci à toi pour le commentaire. Bisous à la reste de la famille, et bien sûr Tito aussi.

A bientôt!