Nos meilleurs délais








Nos meilleurs délais? I gave up.






Have you been affected by any strikes lately?

25 thoughts on “Nos meilleurs délais

  1. We have a friend who was a cheminot–he’s retired. He admits the job is no longer the dirty, dangerous work that won it early retirement. But he thinks nothing should change, ever. And why should the cheminots be the ones to take a hit when other metiers have special rights? Notaries also get to retire very early–a job that was never dirty or dangerous or badly paid. WTF? And how about those legislators? They also can go on “les grand vacances” at a young age.
    All you have to do is see the age-dependency ratio, which has gone from 18 retirees per 100 workers in 1960 to 31 per 100 in 2016. That means workers have to pay almost double to support retirees, and it’s only going to get worse.

    1. Gah! That kind of finger pointing, and refusal to see the big picture (ie, we are all going to pay one way or another for various ‘special privileges’) makes me crazy. The assumption is that the rich don’t pay their taxes anyway, so no point in taking anything away from the little guy. The whole premise of a system that relies upon a shifting demographic to finance the retirements of the elderly is nuts. You are right — it is only going to get worse. Oy vey!

  2. AAARRGGHHH. I know how you feel. Living part time in France, I follow all this to the letter. Here in Deauville, we have high-speed broadband because our mayor is shrewd and tireless and ready to fight for his area. In the last few days, however, it had not been working as well as usual (slower and keeps disconnecting…) So who knows. As for the strikes, my experience is that people never want a change, even if it is in their interest. They have to be dragged kicking and screaming into a new order. And something needs to change if France is to remain competitive in this world – the laws here are shocking. A lot of workers (I wouldn’t like to generalize) seem to be on constant holiday and, as soon as they are ‘contrariés’ in one way or another, have no problem in getting an ‘arrêt de travail’ from their doctor, for indefinite periods of time, renewable at will, and without a report or any restrictions. Meanwhile the employer has to keep their position open, cannot replace them, and still owes them their holidays for the period in which they have not worked. As for the amount of jobs paid for in cash… It’s not just the Greeks who cheat on their taxes… Most ‘lowly’ jobs, and not only, are already done by immigrants, and then they want to stop immigration… Meanwhile, C’est le contribuable qui paye. Sigh…’

    1. So much does come down to local politics and personalities. Lucky you for having a smart cookie in your corner. And how did I miss that you live part time in Deauville?!? Great location — now I understand some of the inspiration for your lovely paintings!

  3. I have very mixed feelings about this – on the one hand I admire the French for striking and for standing up for their rights. The right to strike was hard-won, and whilst that right exists in many countries, it doesn’t appear to be exercised all that much outside of France any more. That’s not to say that I agree with what they are striking for, and I do despair at the disruption the strikes are causing to the everyday lives of so many people.

    1. Totally agree and like the fact that French people are willing to get out there and support what they believe in. But the right to strike should be reserved to situations where negotiations break down, not used as method to get attention and hit where it hurts most.

  4. I can only marvel at the fact that I know of no strikes over here yet and yet we were the striking capital of the World for a long time.Had I lost the internet for that amount of time you would have heard my cries echo down the valleys.I wept buckets at losing my blog for two days thanks to WordPress deciding I should be suspended. Still, maybe it was the Blog Police that complained. At least they did say sorry.I hope you remain connected now.
    xxx Massive Hugs xxx

    1. So glad that you got your blog back, David! What were WP thinking? So far so good today. They blog gods must have known I publish on Thursdays! 😉 A hug and half to you! x

  5. Goodluck on the fast internet, I hope it’s nothing like ours. One federal government began an initiative that would have brought fibre optic internet access to all of Australia, including those living in rural areas. Then another government came in and decided to save money by not bringing the fibre to the house. ‘Just as good but much cheaper’. The result is an absolute mess that’s often slower than what we had before. 😦

    1. Ugh, how very discouraging! Some decisions of public interest should transcend politics; otherwise it’s wasteful and users pay the price. We live in a funny kind of no man’s land with very spotty coverage by various networks. It’s a crap shoot picking your mobile provider. I got burned recently when I changed for a cheaper deal and discovered the new network barely works around here. Makes me so mad I could spit. There, I just did! 😉

      1. Ugh, indeed. 😦 Can you change back again? Alternately, what about getting a satellite dish? We don’t have great reception here and my neighbour has one coz he’s a network engineer and works from home a lot.

  6. I swear… you sure you’re not talking about Quebec? I mean strike-wise, not Internet or telephone… Ugh.
    I think I would seriously go nuts in your situation…

    1. Strikes in Quebec? Could it be a shared gene pool? 😛 I have and probably will continue to lose it from time to time, in between which I strive for a level of zen. Thanks for the support!

  7. It does seem to be a particularly active strike season. I certainly hope you all survive it…reforms are needed but they are always difficult to implement; not only in France but everywhere but maybe with special hardship for France…Good luck with everything. (Suzanne)

    1. I agree, Suzanne. People everywhere resist change, but it does seem the French are particularly good at it! 😀 I’m sure we’ll survive but it will probably be a long season before everyone leaves on vacation. Thanks for your wishes!

  8. Actually, over here in Germany we are THRILLED that there is one of the hundreds of strikes every year- this time it is the airport at Frankfurt, and we actually got a full eight hour night of sleep yesterday, without planes that sound like they are taking off from the bedroom at two, three, four, and seventeen at five a.m. As to the planned tram strike this weekend, not so much. this is the season where there are so many cars in town you can’t park anywhere, and now a tram strike. And since the town streets are totally torn up at the moment, and the street workers are now threatening a strike… looks like we will have to get out our tandem until things calm down in the fall.

    1. Living on the flight path to Frankfurt airport must be a nightmare! We are close to Geneva but the volume (both in terms of the number of planes and the distance from our house) is manageable. The first planes only start around 6 a.m., which I actually like as it reminds me it’s time to get up! That tandem sounds like a good interim solution, but won’t things calm down when people go away on holiday in the summer?

    1. Yes but beyond that a change in culture is needed. People need to believe that hard work will be rewarded. Sarkozy tried to introduce that but it fell flat.

    1. Any activity on the war front frightens me. In this case it is hard to say whether it was truly in defense of the Syrian people or to some other political end. Hard to tell truth from fake news these days… *Sigh*

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