Last Tuesday, November 13, the students at the Université Paul-Valery, Montpellier III voted to officially go on strike in response to some reforms Président Sarkozy is making to the French university system. They held some general assemblies and then barricaded off the entrance gates and all of the building entrances with piles of tables and chairs. They then guard the entrances to ensure that no one gets on campus or into their classrooms. In response to this, as is traditional in strike situations, the president of the university cancelled all classes for a week to ensure that no one got hurt trying to get to class and to make sure that no property was damaged (aside from all the graffiti all over the place inspiring everyone in their strike efforts).
Usually, even when the University goes on strike (which happens about once every two years. If you've never gone on strike for something, you're not actually French. My friend's hostmom said when she was a kid her middle school went on strike. That's right, a bunch of 11-year-olds.), the IEFE, the international student program, still goes on as normal, because we're not actually involved in any of the politics of the strike. But the president decided to go ahead and shut us down too, for security reasons, I believe. Which would mean no class for a week.
So we had no class on Wednesday, which didn't affect me anyway, because I never have class on Wednesdays. But I got an email from one of my teachers saying that the situation had changed somewhat, and they were restarting up classes for us international students. Somewhat disappointed that we didn't get a week-long vacation like the regular French students, we went back to class on Thursday.
Friday morning (at 8.30 in the morning, no less), we got to campus to find out the police had barred it off and weren't letting anyone in. Apparently about 20 students were occupying campus and the president decided enough was enough, so he had the police come in to get them off campus, which is a big deal to everyone on strike, because it's like the police have now invaded their sacred ground. The police have evacuated the 20 students and shut down campus to try and avoid any backlash from other students. They don't want a riot. Normally I guess they just let the students have campus indefinitely (a few years ago they went on strike for most of the semester), but this time they decided they want to try and keep the students from taking over campus again. I'm not sure if this means whether they've dismantled all the barricades or not.
About 20 minutes later the directrice of my program called to make sure that we were okay and not stuck in the middle of anything on campus. She said now we're not sure what's going on with class. Some students may rebel against the police being on campus and things could get pretty serious, so the president may just decide to keep everyone off campus, or they could have us start classes back up this afternoon. We're not really sure what's going to happen. Hopefully not a riot though.
I figure I'll just stay away from campus and see what happens. Apparently these things occasionally get pretty ugly. This strike isn't supposed to last that long, and I don't think the movement is that strong, but the president of the university is taking a pretty strong stance, and Sarkozy has said he's not giving in about his reforms, so we'll just see.
The trains are also on strike, because of retirement reform, which means instead of it's thousands of daily trains, France has only hundreds. This Tuesday all of the civil servants are going to go on strike, which will affect trains, trams, buses, and any other government job, such as public pools, libraries, the post office, etc. Pretty much everything will be shut down. And a bunch of the pre-school teachers are going on strike next Tuesday, too. It's getting kind of crazy over here. Everyone is striking. Maybe I should find something to strike about. Maybe I'll go on strike over the strikes. ;)
16 November 2007
07 November 2007
Toussaints: Berlin, Hamburg, Paris, Normandy
November 1, All Saint's Day, is a national holiday in France (but they don't celebrate Halloween), and my professor canceled class for that Friday, so my friend Heather and I left Tuesday night, Oct 30, for Berlin, then went to Hamburg, Paris, and Normandy, then got back Monday morning.
I loved Germany! Berlin is a beautiful city, and I love how full of history it is. We visited the largest section of remnants of the Berlin Wall, which they've turned into an art gallery by having a bunch of people paint things along it. Contrary to popular opinion, the Wall is actually two walls, one on the East side and one on the West, separated by a few hundred yards of empty space. Most of the Wall was destroyed, but they've marked in cobblestone where it used to be all around the city. Since the area in between the walls also started growing things and got somewhat overgrown right after Wall fell, the city is also endeavoring to turn all of that space into green space, with walking and biking paths and gardens, etc, all across the city. It's actually pretty cool.
Berlin is a gorgeous city, very clean. I liked it a lot. Heather and I did a lot of walking around, not really looking for anything specific. We went to the IMAX theater and saw the movie Trade (in English). I thought it was very well done. It's about sex trafficking in the United States. Definitely a very intense movie, and one I wouldn't take your children to see, but it brings up some of the hidden crimes in the States, the ones no one hears about but that are becoming more and more common.
We also went to the Berlin zoo, where I got to see lots of fun animals. It was very exciting.
Next we went to Hamburg, where we once again didn't really do much except walk around and look at it be pretty. We wanted our trip to be kind of leisurely and relaxing, not running from monument to monument or anything like that, so that's what we did.
Then we went to Paris, where we went to see a ballet at the Opéra Garnier. It was actualy two 40-minute ballets, both of them modern, and the first one was pretty good, but the second one was really cool. I love watching people dance. Ballet is easily my favorite form. It's so gorgeous, I nearly start drooling whenever I see a good ballet dancer. I was really glad I got to go see one in Paris. The Opéra Garnier is a gorgeous old opera house too. It looks like something out of a movie. We were in these little six-person boxes, all done up in red velvet and gilded everything. We had good seats too. It was awesome.
We then went to Normandy for a day and toured Pointe du Hoc, Omaha beach, the American museum, and the German and American cemeteries. It was really neat. Pointe du Hoc is still filled with craters from all the bombs and everything, and you can see the nearly-sheer cliffs the Rangers had to climb to get to the German cannons in an attempt to incapacitate them. Omaha beach is huge, five miles long, and at low tide you can still see where the Americans built an artificial port in the days right after D-day.
The cemeteries were crazy. The American one is the largest land-wise, with 9,000 graves, and it's very impressive. The German one actually affected me more though. It takes up less land, but it's got 21,000 people buried in it, two people for each cross, and being there was very sobering. At least in the American cemetery, you know that each of those people died fighting for freedom, fighting to defend all the people that were unable to defend themselves and were being brutally slaughtered. In the German cemetery, all I could think was that these thousands upon thousands of people died for nothing, fought for nothing. For some maybe it was voluntary, for some maybe they were brainwashed, but when it comes down to it, what were they fighting for? Political power for their homeland? The right to do whatever they wanted, even if it mean slaughtering millions of people they deemed "unworthy"? To prove the superiority of their own race over all others? It's all just vanity, and it took over an entire country. It's astounding, and it's so sad to think of the millions of people that were killed by it, both in the concentration camps and during the war, Allies and Germans.
Overall, the trip went really well, and we were glad we got to go. We loved Germany and northern France was gorgeous, even though it was starting to get kind of cold. It's our last big trip, so we're glad it was a good one!
I loved Germany! Berlin is a beautiful city, and I love how full of history it is. We visited the largest section of remnants of the Berlin Wall, which they've turned into an art gallery by having a bunch of people paint things along it. Contrary to popular opinion, the Wall is actually two walls, one on the East side and one on the West, separated by a few hundred yards of empty space. Most of the Wall was destroyed, but they've marked in cobblestone where it used to be all around the city. Since the area in between the walls also started growing things and got somewhat overgrown right after Wall fell, the city is also endeavoring to turn all of that space into green space, with walking and biking paths and gardens, etc, all across the city. It's actually pretty cool.
Berlin is a gorgeous city, very clean. I liked it a lot. Heather and I did a lot of walking around, not really looking for anything specific. We went to the IMAX theater and saw the movie Trade (in English). I thought it was very well done. It's about sex trafficking in the United States. Definitely a very intense movie, and one I wouldn't take your children to see, but it brings up some of the hidden crimes in the States, the ones no one hears about but that are becoming more and more common.
We also went to the Berlin zoo, where I got to see lots of fun animals. It was very exciting.
Next we went to Hamburg, where we once again didn't really do much except walk around and look at it be pretty. We wanted our trip to be kind of leisurely and relaxing, not running from monument to monument or anything like that, so that's what we did.
Then we went to Paris, where we went to see a ballet at the Opéra Garnier. It was actualy two 40-minute ballets, both of them modern, and the first one was pretty good, but the second one was really cool. I love watching people dance. Ballet is easily my favorite form. It's so gorgeous, I nearly start drooling whenever I see a good ballet dancer. I was really glad I got to go see one in Paris. The Opéra Garnier is a gorgeous old opera house too. It looks like something out of a movie. We were in these little six-person boxes, all done up in red velvet and gilded everything. We had good seats too. It was awesome.
We then went to Normandy for a day and toured Pointe du Hoc, Omaha beach, the American museum, and the German and American cemeteries. It was really neat. Pointe du Hoc is still filled with craters from all the bombs and everything, and you can see the nearly-sheer cliffs the Rangers had to climb to get to the German cannons in an attempt to incapacitate them. Omaha beach is huge, five miles long, and at low tide you can still see where the Americans built an artificial port in the days right after D-day.
The cemeteries were crazy. The American one is the largest land-wise, with 9,000 graves, and it's very impressive. The German one actually affected me more though. It takes up less land, but it's got 21,000 people buried in it, two people for each cross, and being there was very sobering. At least in the American cemetery, you know that each of those people died fighting for freedom, fighting to defend all the people that were unable to defend themselves and were being brutally slaughtered. In the German cemetery, all I could think was that these thousands upon thousands of people died for nothing, fought for nothing. For some maybe it was voluntary, for some maybe they were brainwashed, but when it comes down to it, what were they fighting for? Political power for their homeland? The right to do whatever they wanted, even if it mean slaughtering millions of people they deemed "unworthy"? To prove the superiority of their own race over all others? It's all just vanity, and it took over an entire country. It's astounding, and it's so sad to think of the millions of people that were killed by it, both in the concentration camps and during the war, Allies and Germans.
Overall, the trip went really well, and we were glad we got to go. We loved Germany and northern France was gorgeous, even though it was starting to get kind of cold. It's our last big trip, so we're glad it was a good one!
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