The French say NO!

High school and university students, doctors, members of labor union, researchers—about 50,000 to 60,000 people of all shapes and sizes, (except people of color, the Palestinian activists and women dressed in traditional Muslim attire) stopped downtown traffic for 2.5 hours on Thursday as they walked without incident around the outskirts of Montpellier. The purpose of this demonstration was to show strength before Sarkozy enters into negotiations aimed to reduce expenditures.

What will be negotiated? EU members must keep debt to within 60 percent of gross GDP and deficits to within 3 percent of GDP. In order to "balance the budget" Sarkozy proposes many changes. For example, he wants to reduce the costs of supporting retirement of public transportation workers at the same time that he wants to eliminate state supported nursery schools. He has been working for months to implement a change where universities and researchers to replace public with private funds, perhaps fatally weakening arts and letters programs. For the last two years, when staff has retired from middle schools, they are not replaced.

When have you last seen a crowd like this in the US in a town of 250,000? The French demonstrate readily, scheduling national days of demonstrations months in advance. Today they are demonstrating against proposed changes that will weaken their educational system. Would we ever turn out like that to save our educational system? Is it that we don't think our opinion makes a difference? Does theirs?

This parade was 2.5 hours long starting at 2:30. The last person left the starting gate at 4:40.

"Invest in schools. Demonstrate for the future!" "Liberty for Julian Coupat in prison for 128 days"

Yes , we can!

"No to the precipitous experimentation with reform and without dialogue!"

Our battle is general! (That is to say, the system is broken.) Note: all of the persons holding this sign and for about 30 feet back of it looked like middle schoolers.

"Capitalism has killed happiness. Together let us construct a communist society."

Our school and therefore our studies are directly affected by this wave of discontent. Paul Valery, the university of arts and letters where we are housed, has been empty now for about three weeks as the students and professors strike to prevent the diminution of state support for the liberal arts. Doors are blocked each night. The strike lasted three to six weeks depending on how you count and was finally ended with a 2/3 vote by the students to resume classes. Policy was set by the 1,000 students out of 16000 students who came to the meetings. Eventually, an email vote opened the campus again. A small group of non students broke some windows and spray painted, but there was no other violence against property and no violence against people.

All the university and research centers are affected by a proposal to replace public funds with private. In France, all education after 3 years of age through a doctorate is financed by taxes. In order to cut public costs, and meet the requirements of the EU to "balance the budget" (that is to say, redistribute the income from the poor and middle class to the rich a la The Chicago School of Economics and Milton Friedman) the universities are facing the prospects of knocking on the doors of business. Well, schools of arts and letters will get no funding from the private sector. France prides itself on its ideas and is cutting out the props from the places where young folks get trained in the world of ideas.

Our teachers are becoming jumpier and more brusque as they deal daily with the stress of meeting the demands of an an internationally based student body attending school on a campus which is otherwise totally closed. One of Bob's teachers, excellent at the beginning of the semester, comes to class now unprepared and looking harried, leaves class frequently for consultations in the hall, etc. On Friday we were told for the fourth time that there might not be school next week. The teachers want us to be safe and there was one incident where a group of young people, not students, broke windows and spray painted. Further, I know some of our teachers want to be in solidarity with the rest of their professional colleagues on the campus.

Will there be school tomorrow? We will see....

Bob read that 4 million French were on the streets last week including the 60,000 in Montpellier. The police reports, always more conservative, place it at 1 million.

There are certainly a lot of manifestations and greves here that relate to improving working conditions. In contrast, in the US the manifestations to get out of the war in Vietnam and not to get into the war in Iraq, did not pressure for change in the world of work. American unions engaged in 159 work stoppages in 2008 down from 1352 in 1981 according to the Bureau of National Affairs.

Do strikes work? Do manifestations? I don't know, but I do know that they represent a degree of civil commitment and concern not found in the US. Most of the French do not emigrate, do not vacation out of France, and like living here. Perhaps they are closed minded. Perhaps the greves have created a society where life is "better."

 

 

More to come!