Greve-ing

Greve is the French word for "strike". And striking (or "greving" in Franglais) is certainly something that the French know how to do well.

AND I AM SICK OF IT!

My first or second week here, there was a huge greve in town, with something like 30,000 people out on the streets of our fairly small city - and proportionate turnout throughout the rest of France. Me, in my naivete thought it was so exceptional and exciting.

It's not exceptional. And its not exciting.
In fact, the French greve all the time, and over pretty much anything. There's another big greve this Thursday. But don't go thinking that the French actually went two months in between greves. No.

The university has been intermittently greving pretty much all semester. This means that sometimes you will show up to class to find that the teacher isn't coming in that day, because they are "on strike". There doesn't seem to be any sort of consistent pattern or reasoning to who strikes or when, and professors can pretty much strike whenever they want to. And if/when there is a formal greve organized by a union - members or that union are not required to strike. They are perfectly capable to going to work that day without being considered to have "crossed the picket line". I don't know how this is supposed to accomplish anything - but that doesn't seem to bother the French.

There are students who greve too. Especially at the university. Two weeks ago they took to the streets and marched in the middle of the afternoon - trouble was everyone else was at work/school, so I don't know exactly who they were demonstrating FOR. Last week they took the chairs out of the classrooms and stacked them all over campus, and in the middle of a rotary down the street. And today? ALL THE DOORS to the academic buildings were locked. NO ONE had classes.
Well, no one except for us lucky DeFLE students (French as a second language). Apparently the DeFLE is under a different statute - so (un)fortunately the teachers aren't allowed to strike. Today was interesting though, because one of my DeFLE classes takes place in the university proper (which was locked) - so we had to hold class in the DeFLE teacher's lounge.
Interestingly, the other university in Nancy (Science Po), is like the DeFLE, in that it is not allowed to strike either. This is because it is technically considered a grand-ecole (elite but accessible university system established by Napoleon in an attempt to abolish aristocratic privilege after the revolution) - and therefore under a different statute/set of laws as well. Cohesive, right?

As a side note, the French still love Napoleon. Jokes about a “small man complex” aside, he is revered for the systems he imposed after the revolution, and helping to re-unite the French public. They still can’t understand why those damn English wanted to go and stop him.

Oh France.



EDIT: I just re-read this post and it sounds really pissed off. It's not supposed to be. More like, "humorously annoyed while giving a fairly accurate picture of French universities?" - but I'm not sure I'm that eloquent

- also I feel the need to brag that I'm finally (kind of) getting my life together, and will hopefully write a bragging post soon if/when things are finalized.