STRIKES! civic engagement or just plain annoying?

"France is experiencing major disruption because of a nationwide strike against the government's austerity measures. About 50% of trains have been affected, flights disrupted and universities and schools closed in the 24-hour protest. "

Workers are apparently striking over the government raising the retirement age from 60 to 62, which seems a bit ridiculous. But, as the BBC article states, this is "a sizeable jump in a country that guards jealously its way of life." Furthermore, there are a plethora of reasons the other strikes occuring. For example some secondary school teachers went on strike because of a potential plan to cut 7,000 education jobs.

And yet, these strike really appear to cripple trains, flights, and daily life for so many.

"Fewer than half of all inter-city and local train services are expected to run on Tuesday, state railway company SNCF said. But Eurostar trains between France and London should be operating normally.

France's civil aviation authority said it had asked all airlines to cut Paris flights by a quarter. Air France said it would cut short- and medium-haul flights into and out of Paris by up to 90%, with long-haul flights remaining largely unaffected. " hmmm, so I may be in Paris for longer than expected...

anyway, this is the article to check out: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11204528

another issue to learn more about and keep an eye on, is the power of France's largest union, the CGT.

The differences in American and French political culture(as depicted so well by the great Alexis de Tocqueville), seem to have only intensified. Just compare unions in France to the power of unions in the US. While unions reached the height of their power under FDR and into the 1950's, presidents like Reagan called their bluff and sent them packing(i.e. fired 12,000 workers) . See this informative article on the rise of union membership, and then its decline in the 1980's: http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-bz.unions08jun08,0,1761456.story?page=1

I tend to view these strikes as a very vocal and visible form of civic engagement, but then again, once I live in France it might became more of an annoyance. On the question of civic engagement however, I wonder if we can imagine almost 1 million Americans going on strike in today's political atmosphere that reaks of partisanship within the political class and apathy in the general population(excluding Palin and Beck's "Tea Party" --which receives too much publicity for such a ridiculous group anyway) That's right, "France's largest union, the CGT, said it expected the turnout for the protest marches across the country to be stronger than during the strikes in June, when more than 800,000 people took part in demonstrations." I mean the protests during Vietnam, and even Iraq, were considerable, no doubt about it. But close to 1 million American striking about raising the age of retirement by two years, or even over unemployment issues? I just don't see it.