IMPORTANT UPDATE on Wednesday Oct 20: All over France, access to fuel has been severely limited. This is due to fuel blockades. Protesters have been blocking the entrance to fuel depots.
Today, Police cleared protestors blockading French some fuel depots on Wednesday as the government tried to face down strikes over its pensions reform.
http://www.english.rfi.fr/france/20101020-police-break-fuel-blockade-france-strike
Access to fuel in Chateau Thierry at the moment is close to nil. It has been like this since Monday night. It is unclear when the next delivery of fuel to our town will be.
DISCLAIMER: The information here is only partial and is correct to the best of my knowledge.
Tomorrow I will be teaching alone again considering some of my fellow colleagues are going on strike again.
Because of the strikes, there is a nationwide fuel shortage. Some gas stations are completely shutdown at the moment. Here in Chateau Thierry, the buses for students will most likely not be running due to the fuel shortage. The funny thing is, just the other night an official for the government said "Don't worry people, there are reserves and this is no time to worry about a fuel shortage. At this time, that isn't even possible." What she said was in French, those words are my translation of what they said.
UPDATE: Many buses did NOT come to school today on Tuesday October 19 2010.
Today I sent postcards back home. But who knows when everyone back home will receive them, strikes have also affected the postal service.
Friday I go on vacation. I really want to travel and see France, but honestly I am somewhat afraid to. There is a high likelihood I could get stranded temporarily somewhere or that my train could get canceled. It's about a thirty three per cent chance I would be out of luck and stuck. It's not even clear if I will get a refund on train tickets if a train gets canceled. But maybe I will travel anyway!?
Protests have been ongoing. Check out these statistics from Saturday...
Protests have been ongoing. What is interesting is the numbers for the
numbers of protesters and the massive difference between the estimations...
Number of protesters in Lille:
Prefecture: 6500
CGT: 14000
Paris:
Prefecture: 50 000
CGT: 310 000
In all of France:
Prefecture: 825,000
CGT: 3,000,000
The Prefecture is the Paris police headquarters and the CGT is a
French labor union. The police grossly underestimate the numbers,
while the CGT exaggerates. It is incredibly fascinating.
The minimum retirement age is now 62 instead of 60. If people retire
at 67, they will receive their full pension. If people retire at 62,
they will receive a small fraction of their full pension. People are
protesting because they want the government to repeal this decision
and to come up with another solution to resolve the financial crisis
here in France.
From those I have talked to, people are protesting for two reasons A) so that the govrnment will repeal the retirement age reform and instead choose another solution to solve France's financial difficulties or B) if that can not be accomplished, people are protesting to influence the senate as they debate the 820 amendments of the reform.
There is a huge vote planned for Wednesday. If the strikes are massive tomorrow, it is possible the vote will be postponed.
Tomorrow marks yet another nationwide strike, the third this month. However it is predicted thqt fewer will participate because a lot of people have families to feed and people do not want to lose another day's wages at this point. At this point, some people feel it just isn't worth protesting if it won't accomplish anything and/or if hardly anyone else participates in the protests. But it looks very likely that the number of students present tomorrow will be close to zero. Last week, those absent ranged from 60 percent to 90 per cent.
Will the strikes last all week again? How many teachers will be on strike? How many students will not be in their seats, but instead outside the school blocking access to the school... yet again? How bad will the fuel shortage get? How badly will transportation be affected this time? And what is going to happen on Wednesday???
If anyone has any thoughts or more information on the subject, please e-mail me at cassiebow@gmail.com. I feel like all the information I have access to is so biased so more opinions and more information are very much welcome!
If you have a train ticket, and your train gets canceled, it can be refunded. Also, you can take any train heading in your direction if your train is canceled and you want/need to still use your ticket.
ReplyDeleteAre you traveling at all? Also, it sounds like there is not a fuel shortage but rather an intentional and artificial fuel shortage. There is not actually a
ReplyDeletefuel shortage but instead the workers are intentionally halting the work
necessary to deliver the fuel. Man it is so hard to get all the facts straight, I feel very much misinformed in all this...
the news reported in the states is the workers(fuel drivers are preventing the union) are blocking transport drivers from filling up there tanker trucks to disperse to the gas stations. Large trucks block them from going to fill tanker, however some due get thru peacefully, but staions are running out and people are linning up so they can get what is available. so there you have it its temporary by strike standards. xoxo
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