The benefits of strikes and protests.

This is a note to remind everybody why strikes and demonstrations are so much part of French culture.. well, this is simply because.. it works and the French can also be very pragmatic.
Yesterday, French Prime minister Raffarin announced an increase of pay for public employees as well as encouraging talks in the private sector for widening share ownership. The prime minister said the government had a "slim room for manoeuvre" thanks to unexpectedly high tax revenues.

This of course comes after last week's strikes and demonstrations on Thursday when over 1 million people took the street. This also comes after France's top publicly-quoted companies reported record profits just as unemployment climbed above 10%.

What to conclude of that?

France is still the "same good old country", and if you want the government to listen to you in France, you just need to let them know loud and clear and the only way to do that is to go on strike, demonstrate and "walk the street for money". It just works ! That may sound a bit archaic to a lot of people, but that's the way it has been for a long time. Just read 'Asterix'. ;-)