CAPETONIAN - I always enjoy your frequent and often humourous posts here, although this time I have a different take on your view of the Land of Wine and Cheese...
My ex-LHS English neighbour always says that rugby isn't the national sport in France - going on strike is actually the national sport....And he insists that instead of ending the news with tomorrow's weather forecast, complete with a map of France scattered with graphics of clouds, sun, rain, etc, it would be much more useful for everyone if there was a map of France complete with graphics of trains, factories, schools, etc, and we were told who would be on strike tomorrow, and where....And if there's enough time, perhaps an explanation why....
There's actually some truth to this, but each to his own opinion and having lived here on-and-off for the past 35 years or so, I quite admire the French attitude to economics in the modern world....France is, after all, the last communist country in Europe with its massive publically and semi-publically owned conglomerates and its centrally planned economy....
As for the national sport, whether it's unions striking en masse against the government, or individual unions striking against specific companies, you'd have to say that most of the time these strikes seem to eventually work in the favour of the strikers....
And the strikes aren't just limited to manual workers - almost everyone joins in whatever their social status. The result is that middle and higher income professionals in France probably are able to have and keep hold of the best standard of living in Europe....It's simply down to the fact that they don't see going on strike as being ' beneath ' them or as being anti-social if going on strike is what is required to keep what they've worked hard to get....
In our business, Air France employees have never been afraid to threaten or call a strike the past 25+years whether against the government or their management, and have managed to maintain what are probably still the best T&C's in Europe.
Think about the constant stream of posts here on pprune from other countries, with crews rightly complaining about the constant erosion of their T&C's by management....Compare that to France - no P2F in French owned companies; Easy and Ryanair forced to give their French based staff a ' proper ' contract and not a half-baked now-you've-got-job, now-you-haven't-got-a-job contracts ; constantly changing legislation to make sure Air France will always play downhill on the unlevel playing surface which is French aviation ; etc, etc....All of which has been ' won ' by fairly regular, union backed threats of strike action by the many and various unions inside Air France....
As a perfect and most recent example of what I'm talking about, have a root around here on pprune for a look at the AF cabin crews T&C's compared to those ' enjoyed ' by the same neighbour's daughter who recently got a job on BA's Mixed Fleet....
So I actually quite appreciate the French attitude of ' Sorry you have been inconvenienced today - but if I just accept without resistence the erosion of my T&C's then I'll be inconvenienced for the rest of my life, not just for one day ' because there were times in the past when I got the benefits from this dysfunctional economic system, and as I get ever so closer to compulsory retirement, I might be able to go through it with a little bit more of the money I worked bloody hard to put together the past 35 years....