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15 March 2006
More Student Protests in Paris
Students protesting the changes in work contracts for "first job" employees take to the streets again this week (it's nice out, why go to class and bother with that degree?) with an estimated 40,000 students around the country in the streets.
Some press are referring to the "riots". Aside from blocking traffic and a skirmish between police and students who wouldn't leave the university building they were occupying (about 100 students were tear-gassed and, according to the local news, arrested) all is "business as usual" in Paris. There was also, today, a protest against the university blockade by students who were angry that they were missing class. Bravo!
In the ten years I've been in France, I've never seen any violent marches. As you can see here, students and passers-by are just hanging out, watching the noisy procession go by. They're actually fun to watch the first few times. Then they get a bit boring. Same signs, same chanting, same banging drums, same trail of garbage behind them...vive la France! Now get back to class, little hooligans!
12:35 Posted in Around Town | Permalink | Comments (4) | Email this
Comments
...and quit yelling outside my windows, too!
Posted by: David | 15 March 2006
My parents are there right now, on rue Gay-Lussac near the Sorbonne...hope things continue to sound worse in the media than they actually are!
Posted by: Amy Stewart | 21 March 2006
I wish that Americans were more like the French. There is a sense of interconnectedness, as if they owe one another a decent life and the only way to do that is to take care of and protect one another. Meanwhile in the US of Me, we are losing our jobs and our pensions and everything else to make a few people filthy rich. Those that don't have simply don't work hard enough. While it may not always be convenient and even gets frustrating at times, I'd take the strike mentality over the don't make waves and upset the applecart or you are not patriotic way of the good old USA. In reality, things are much worse in Uncle Sam's school of outsource the country, and what are American sutdents doing? Supporting war for oil to be able to drive the Lexux daddy bought them.
Posted by: Mark Anthony | 22 March 2006
Mark, Your idealism is commendable (for fairy-tales), but in the real world, young people can find jobs in the US; in France they can't. People with limited capital can start a small business and succeed in the US; in France they can't. In general, people are allowed to make valid economic decisions in the US; in France they aren't.
Posted by: John Gardner | 23 March 2006
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