a little update.
the main french trade union, the CGT, estimated 3.5 million people turned out to protest sarkosy's plan. the ministry of the interior estimate 1.1 million. the strikes have been happening for over a week.
there contact but no movement in negociations between the government and unions.
the government is threatening to start arresting people who are involved with a blockading the oil refineries (which is why they're shut down).
Les responsables de blocus risquent la prison - LeMonde.fr
the right to strike is constitutionally protected in france, btw.
it has no such legal status in the u.s. of a., particularly not since taft-hartley.
if a strike in the states were to mess with the flow of vital petro-capitalist lifeblood, the military would be called down on it.
"national security" dontcha know.
in the states, to loop back to the o.p., protest movements are theater. the state has nothing to fear from the beyond maybe loss of legitimacy. but that's typically temporary.
the worst that can happen, really, is violent confrontations between the cops and protestors that get on tv. control over access to tv time is key--we know this from watching fox news create lay astro-turf around the tea party. anyway, protest is theater. the state of things is never threatened by them.
conservatives and police learned during the vietnam period (a) that it's better not to confront directly and (b) if you do, keep it off camera.
but that doesn't mean one gets to demonstrate just anywhere. now there are "Free Speech Zones". unless you're a tea partier, i suppose. then anything goes.
o yeah, the political geography of paris is different from that of washington d.c.: the city's smaller. traditionally you can draw a line down the center of the city--to the east is a space of political action, typically centered around republique and bastille on the right bank and around the latin quarter on the left--but the university system was reorganized after 68 so there's little likelihood of student movements taking on the same centrality.
except now, all over france, it's high school kids who are out too. and they're everywhere.
to the west of the center line are the space of power. l'assemblé nationale is in the 7th, near invalides. if protests head that way, it becomes a political problem. that's why you see those nice paramilitary crs gentlemen blocking demo routes that way.
what makes this a particularly interesting strike is first it's size second its duration third that it's all over the country and fourth that it's gone after gas production as a way of trying to force the government to capitulate.
and sarkosy's popularity ratings, which were never great, are not entirely in the toilet.
so this is fast getting to be hardball.