Stricken by a Striking Paris on Strike

I suffered, oh yes I suffered! Instead of the 08.14, I got on the 08.54 from Mussidan to Bordeaux yesterday.

Some early trains were cancelled and I could decipher anxiety in the eyes of my fellow passengers as we all gazed up at the departure board for our connecting trains, once we’d reached our destination – on time. 

Keeping focused was hard. Outside Bordeaux’s station, a good 120 people had just started marching to join up with other protesters somewhere in the city. Their chants, their friendly faces, their enthusiasm and the funny songs they played in the loudspeakers nearly wore off the traveller’s worries. But we held on. We were boarding trains on a strike day, and that was not meant to be easy.

My train to Paris turned up with a small 10 minutes delay, barely worth mentioning, if not for the feeling that I was back in London for a minute, delayed trains, really?

 The journey was smooth and we reached the French Capital under a very engaging blue sky and warm sunshine, something planned by the cunning French meteorologists to lure me in a sense of comfort and let my guard down.I escaped Gare Montparnasse uneventfully to walk down to the river Seine, staying away from any form of public transport, so unreliable on a National Strike Day.

Eiffel Tower Lights up with Fury in Support of Strikes

The tourists that ambushed my stroll with their random stopping on the pavement, their constant pointing at shops and buildings forced me to join in the relaxed atmosphere that was floating over the Left Bank. 

I carried on walking through the small streets, avoiding the main avenues.

My plan was simple, make it to my meeting in a cafe near the Louvre without being stuck between enraged rioters and left-bashing policemen. 

It worked perfectly well ! I’m a genius in urban warfare. All I saw were cars and vespas zooming by, people getting on and off buses, while others had elected to use the Metro (subway/underground).

Why ! Didn’t they know ? Didn’t they realise what was looming between the bookshops and the trendy outfitters? This was National Strike Day in Paris, the gate to the  Next Revolution (I am not talking about Facebook or Apple here, so quit it!), the real Revolution, the head-chopping kind, the ‘off with them all bourgeois’ sort of unrest. This was no day to amble about, pretending it was business as usual. 

Soon-retired Parisians in Strike-denial

Maybe they all shared my unconditional love for the French public radio broadcast service and its 7 radio-stations that would all provide a very limited service on strike-days ? Like me, they would have been deprived from their morning bulletins and couldn’t have basked in the satisfaction to read about their country in the Anglo-Saxon press. Ah ! the fools, the ignorant, so French, so proud, taking the tube to work, meeting with friends for their one-hour lunch breaks…if only they knew !

Safe and sound, I crossed the Seine and walked through the Louvre, turned left near Place Colette and stopped to meet my friend, a big cheese at the newspaper Le Canard Enchaine, for a cup of the best coffee in Paris, at Cafe Verlet. It was mid-afternoon and Paris, more than ever, was looking like its proper self. Even more like a caricature of itself : an open-air museum patrolled by the fashion police. The cobbled streets, the well-dressed Parisians, the many languages of the tourists and businessmen alike. Yes, I was far from Dordogne but nested in a postcard of French-ness, with the smell of cigarettes and half a tiny cup of hot Misor.

So where were the burnt cars and the angry commies followed by violent youths that I had read about ?  

-This strike does have an effect on the economy you know, my friend the newspaperman told me. People are back at work because the strike has been going on for a while, but it is hitting us hard.

-Why is that then ? I asked.

Combining my analytical powers and my background in financial news, I expanded my question  further:  Do people have less money after marching the streets for a few days. I guess it did affect their salaries ? The answer had more to do with sports and coordination.

-During strike times, they are fewer trains, and a guy who runs after his train doesn’t stop to by a paper.

 Ashamed of failing this test of pure Descartes-like reasoning, I left him for my next meeting. It lead me through the Jardin des Tuileries to cross the Seine again and walk up to rue de Varennes to meet an old friend from university. He advises a member of Cabinet on all things related to Public services. Surely, he had a good insight on those terrible strikes that were shaking the core of the Nation. But first,  I got lost on the way there and ended up walking around l’Elysee, the palace where Nicolas Sarkozy rules France from. Policemen and gendarmes galore in the neighbourhood, but no specific tension palpable.

Suspiciously Nice Weather Lures Tourists to Enjoy Their Time in Paris

 Even near the siege of all powers, France, on this National strike Day was not to fall in a deep rebellious state. The only commotion I saw was at the bottom of Les Champs Elysees when a procession of police motorbikes and official looking cars, all lights and  sirens blazing cut the traffic to take someone important somewhere important. Maybe this was the man with the solution to end the strike ? In a small briefcase, on his lap, at the back of the gun proof limo, he had  the few lines of speech that would unite the country again, instead of keeping it divided between the millions of citizens tending to their existences and friends as if nothing was wrong, and those pounding the pavement in frustration ?

Public Transport at a Standstill

Maybe…not sure though, the issue is serious. It mixes rapid changes in the society with personal discontent and even when touching lightly on the subject, one can only remember that social laws in France were implemented after WWII to re-build a country around strong ideals and make life better for people. And that seems to be forgotten in the national debate around the retirement age.

No burning cars, no charging riot police, no broken shop windows...I do suspect that Parisians were putting up a show for me yesterday, caught up between denial and determination to carry on living their trendy life. 

I’m now heading to Amsterdam for 2 days an already, the tension becomes palpable once again. The train conductor has just made an announcement in French with a very strong Flemish accent :    ‘we re trying to find out why we’re not moving’. 

I have it ! National Strike Day in France, when things go pear-shaped : Blame the Dutch !

Tight shorts, sweaty armpits, stuffed deer-head and eatable panties...breaking the ice in the countryside

"It's funny how we've had a busier social life here in 3 weeks than in the last 6 months in Dulwich" Sue said as we were walking back up the hill after a jog in the forest last July.
She was right (as always-I know she will read those lines): we had been invited for cake at some friends' house, we had entertained relatives and guests, dug up and fried our potatoes, grilled sausages on the barbecue and looked at the stars many a time throughout the summer. But that was not the real deal.
The threshold in becoming part of our village was to be invited to someone's house for the first time, someone we barely knew. And that was what we'd just done, without really knowing it, as we walked back to the house in our sweaty running gear.
One hour earlier, we were still jogging when we reached the bottom of the hill and I spotted my extremely helpful neighbour Paul in his garden. He was working on his very nice looking vegetable plot  when I called his name. It was the perfect excuse to stop huffing and puffing in my bright yellow T-Shirt. (I'm convinced that when I wear that T-shirt, hunters will see me from afar and won't mistake me for a deer or else, but now that I think about it, maybe I should reconsider because they could take it as  a dare or a challenge to their marksmanship or just a provocation. And it is a provocation, at least to good taste...).
Paul came over and we talked about vegetables, and gardening and before long, he offered us a drink. It would have been rude to refuse, even if by then, sweat was gently running down my back and my ribcage and Sue's cheeks had turned bright red. He beckoned us to follow him inside. I made a few tentative jokes to excuse our appearance and entered his house, where he lead us straight into the lounge.

Paul is a hunter and therefore displays various very dead animals on the walls of his living room. He is also a husband and, as such, told his wife to get some drinks because we wanted a beer. I refrained from saying that 'we' didn't ask for anything, but that instead 'we' were invited in, but somehow I thought that tight-lycra-running-shorts and a bright yellow smelly T-shirt don't really cut it on the diplomatic battlefield of married life.
Paul is also a father and introduced us to his son and his girlfriend, both working for the Army in Paris,  who were spending a few days riding their motorbike in sunny Dordogne. They were wearing footballers shorts and flip-flops and seemed half as embarrassed as we were to be dragged into a social setting with complete strangers in beach outfits. The conversation rambled over a few casual topics, including the stuffed deer-head above the TV and the wild-board head on the wall behind us and we bid our farewell.
Through and through this was a success. It was a first invitation and those can't be refused in a small village like ours. Also,  Sue and I had learned that we could crush our fashion sense and even our egos when the occasion called upon us.

Weeks passed and we progressed beyond our expectations on our journey to social integration. The best tools, obviously, are children. Amongst the many reasons that could justify procreation, meeting people should rank pretty high.
On the first school day in September, we took the boys to their new schools. All nervous and worried they each bravely pushed the gate of their new universe when we, parents, stood there on the street, looking at them in the distance, as they tried to act cool and wondered who would be their first friend. The same went with us. We already knew the couple who runs a lovely local restaurant. They were taking their kids to their first school-day of the year too. They immediately introduced us to a bunch of parents and we started shaking hands and saying hello, while others had already moved on to the less formal 'bise', the classic kiss on both cheeks. We were invited to tag along to the local cafe and were baptized 'newbies' in less than 5 minutes. Conversation was extremely pleasant, especially as everybody admitted that they had enough of having their kids at home and couldn't wait for them to start school again. How sincere and unpretentious, what a change!
On the second morning, some of the parents went to the cafe again, we tagged along and were invited to one of the dads' birthday party the following tuesday. Good wine and excellent 'moules-frites' helped talking with 5 or 6 very nice couples and we suddenly felt part of the group. Very simple and easy.
Since then, I have volunteered with some of the dads and mums to help with the cycling and swimming classes and even find myself elected as one of the parents-rep on the school board.

Nevertheless, there are some boundaries not to cross, and in a small village, it seems you can make enemies as quickly as you can make friends.
The election as parent-rep to the school-board was a bit of a Cuban political contest. Our list finished first with 95% of the votes registered. The fact people only had one list to vote for helped a bit.
But we still had to open all the little envelopes provided by the school and count the number of votes. In the process, we were to eliminate any empty envelope and count aside any list where one name at least had been crossed out. Parents knew that crossing one name would make their whole vote void but village feuds, schoolyard fights, car park stand-offs and fence rivalry got the best of a small minority. Some of the bulletins had one name crossed out, nearly a direct threat. Others bore the signs of a quasi-global vendetta where all the name -except for the new guys-  where blackened in rage.
And then there was The One, the ballot disfigured by two lines, one on a friend's name and one on mine. Judging by the number of times her name had been crossed out, my friend seemed to have accumulated a lot of grudge throughout her 15 years tenure as parent-rep, but I, whose children just joined the school and lived in a village 4km away? I guess I'm collateral damage in a local war, hanging out with the wrong crowd, in the wrong place, at the wrong time (9 to 9.20 am at the cafe, mostly on monday and tuesday)...
So, there I have it, my first distant and secret enemy, someone I may have offended by not giving her 'la bise' one morning, or someone I forced to slow down behind me when I do my sharp left turn in the forest, who knows, so many perennial insults, innocent but deep vexations, hard to say. I take it all as a sign of further integration in rural France... I have my first enemy.

So, here we are, making our way through social codes and friendly gatherings in the Dordogne, amazed at how nice it has been to meet thess people. Yet, some lines have to be drawn, and ours, so far, is eatable panties.
One could think that the rolling hills of Perigord are just harboring conversations about wine and the many ways to cook duck. Not true, the recipes being concocted behind closed doors are a tad more spicy. One morning at the cafe I was asked what our plans where for the week-end. Feeling provocative I replied 'why do you have something in mind that involves wearing anything but masks and a number on our back? and proceeded to explain that we where actually heading to Bordeaux for my dad's birthday. The answer was a bit of a surprise :'Well you could just go on sunday, because on saturday night we're having a sex-toy party, and you could come'.
I knew immediately that the offer was a kind gesture to strengthen our burgeoning friendship (in a strange way, I agree) but couldn't help wondering how I would have felt discussing vibrator speeds with people I didn't really know. I got a quick recap of their evening afterwards and was told that the saleslady presented various articles including eatable panties, massage oils to the 20 couple invited, before displaying more straight-to-the point articles. I also incidentally learned that Bergerac has 2 swingers clubs. The idyllic French landscape has many hidden sides.
Looking back, I can't help wondering if by turning down that invitation I haven't made a social faux-pas. Maybe I even have angered someone enough so that they'd cross my name on the parent-rep list ...

Ripping the fruits of labour

It has come, the jolly time of harvesting the grapes in the many, many, many vineyards that grow all around Bergerac. 

Some started a few weeks ago already, according to the maturity of the specific grapes they need for the type of wine they're making. Others had to wait, and even have to wait a bit longer, because what they want is very, very special. They are looking for what English people refer to when they describe  a mean-drunk-violent  and conservative aristocrat in a BBC period drama : they're waiting for noble rot. 

But it does have a different meaning around here. Even if chasing an overweight middle-aged wigged Duke down the hills with a scythe can seem rather enticing,   noble rot refers to the rotten grapes, saturated in sugar, that are used to make Montbazillac. It's a sweet, golden wine served with foie-gras or pudding and generally over-priced in local restaurants. I'm not a big fan but it has its takers. 

Still, I thoroughly enjoyed my day of harvest, in the family-run Chateau Pintoucat. The owners are more than friendly and the crew they assembled for the harvest rather nice. No youngsters here, but seasoned farm workers and a group of Belgians, friends of the owner. Some of them did not really plan to stay and cut the grapes. They were supposed to head back home on wednesday but the public sector strike shut down our local airport for the week. 

It's a become a running gag those strikes, but as one who never went on strike during my salaried life, I'm rather glad some people are holding up the flag for all those who can't... But are they holding up the right flag ?

The current protest, that spread to high school students in the last 3 days, is targeted against the change in our retirement system. The government want people to stop working later. Instead of 60, people will end their career at 62. Two more years when you've worked for 40 years, I guess, it's a tough pill to swallow. But that would imply that one started working at 20. Which is less and less the case considering more and more people go to University and start working after 25. 

For those who embarked on a career straight after high-school, it's unfair, it's true, especially as they are more likely to have done physically demanding jobs. The solution therefore is to calculate retirements by months or years of activity, with a discount when the person held a difficult job. 

Also, protesters marching the streets in the hope that the government will back down are only looking at their short-term future. They're not putting in the equation the fact that baby-boomers are retiring now and we need a bigger work force to pay their retirements. Oh, yes, because it's the whole group of workers that contribute to paying retirements over here. Private pensions are an oddity in this country, and workers tend to take this amazing system for completely granted, and not as an amazing chance compared to other 'wealthy' nations.  But as the pool of retired workers is bound to grow, those in activity will have to work longer, so why not start now. It's a question of principle they say...

 Well once again, a Right is taken for granted, without much consideration for the obligations attached to it. Union and political leaders avoid to paint the bigger picture, not showing how privileged this country is compared to others, at least for salaried people. Self-employed people, or farmers for instance have a much tougher deal, and they don't complain as much. Is it because they know that freedom is priceless, even if it can be costly? I guess there must be some truth in this because those two, that we saw during the 'vendange' (grape harvest) didn't seem to be very rich, but must be rather happy to spend a few hours doing that at their age, even if, when you look closer, you'll see that the lady is pulling the motorized digger by hand, like horses used to do. Meanwhile, the airport was on strike.

   

Never say 'jamais' again

I started on a new project after picking up the kids from school today: getting the soil ready for a bigger vegetable patch, next spring. 

It's ambitious on more than one level. For a start, I know close to nothing about gardening and growing food. And if that's not enough of a hurdle, I'm not really methodic. Therefore, on sunday, I spent two hours digging out a local comestible weed pourpier that had overtaken our smaller patch. What will happen in a plot 4 times larger? .
I promised myself not to let it get out of control, we'll see if I can stick to that. Especially after I dumped five loads of dried horse-manure on the plot. And it's just the beginning. There is a good dozen more trips to be made with the wheelbarrow. The fecal fertilizer is on the ground of the old tobacco barn.It's been there for years, at least since the previous occupier (horse rider and saddle maker) left and it's worked wonders on the flower beds in front of the house. 


Nevertheless, manure is not selective -in case you wondered- and will help good and bad seeds to grow. But we're not there yet. Once the whole plot is covered, my neighbour Jean-Paul, a retired farmer will come and mix it to the soil with his old tractor and some scary contraption.

Where am I going, telling you all this? 

Well, as I was transferring dried horse pooh into the wheelbarrow, I realised that I was literally doing what I swore I'd never do again: shoveling shit. In my previous tv life in London, I got stuck on a production job sorting out a rather large and pointless mass of news items for our regional channels and different show-producers. And I had no better analogy to describe my task than that: shoveling shit. 

I didn't cope with it for too long and moved onto better things, promising myself  not to do that ever again... and there I am,  I just did it, with a smile on my face. Nothing's carved in stone ...

But my lesson in relativity didn't stop there. The impenetrable ways of the French administrative system have taught me more. 

We've been in France for more than 3 months now, and without any healthcare coverage whatsoever. Until today. 

Before moving here, the 'Securite Sociale' told me that we'd get the basic free coverage called CMU. It was a different story once we got here. An employee suggested we'd get an European card delivered by the UK, a card for people on holiday and valid for 1 year. I explained we were not traveling but living here. I checked with the UK and was confirmed in my believes, no European card but instead the possibility to transfer our file to France. I just had to print the E106 file and send it back to HMRS. 

After a few weeks, the answer came back. Because we only worked in the UK for 18 months, we were not eligible to be covered by the UK. Nothing, zero, back to square one. 

In the meantime, my lovely wife had worked enough hours here to receive healthcare coverage, for her and the kids and even I. So it's done, thanks to my British wife, working for an American company, whereas I, a French national, salaried in France for six years before leaving the country in 2006 was not entitled to anything. The Administrative Lord works in mysterious ways.