THE (1ST?) DAY OF THE STRIKE
2010
A general strike has been announced for today and we have no plans to go anywhere. We stay at home working away, and when be begin to feel peckish, I go out to find something good to eat. I am tempted by a Traiteur Japonais and buy fried noodles and prawns in sweet and sour sauce, which I take home to heat up and eat with chopsticks, accompanied byanother cold beer. I have to wonder who is still cooking in Paris, when you can buy almost anything readymade - and it is all so GOOD!
Max Dickmann calls with coordinates of the strikers’ march. They are congregating at Montparnasse and will walk by us on Blvd. St Germain on their way to the Bastille around 3:30pm. When around that time I begin to hear a great din of people I run to the street, camera in hand and wearing my down vest, because it has suddenly got a lot cooler. Coming up rue L’Eperon I can see an endless mass of people walking by on the boulevard. When I reach the corner the marching throng reaches as far as the eye can see in both directions. Stickers with the number 60 are glued on faces, arms, legs, dogs - people are marching for their option to retire at 60 - with partial benefits - and at 65 for full pension. The government has recently pushed that age up by two years. Although there’s a certain amount of shouting and calling out of slogans, the marchers seem pretty cheerful and sort of normal - they’re just walking. When we leave the area - almost an hour later, they’re still marching by. Estimated numbers vary between 85,000 and 300,000. Later, when we go for a long nocturnal walk, taking us into the Latin Quarter and up past the beautifully lit Pantheon, it appears life has resumed as always, most cafés and restaurants are full with groups of people smoking outside, the normal chatter - no tension in the air. After our Japanese lunch we’re not hungry, but a drink would be nice. Turns out it’s not so easy to find a bar, and we end up close to home in the St. Germain Pub. There’s some hesitation seating us, since we say we won’t eat, but when we finally get to order, the drinks have the prices of a substantial meal. I order a Bombay Sapphire Dry Martini, Oswaldo a Bloody Mary, and while we wait we watch a bartender throw bottles artfully in the air, except they often crash to the ground. Odd. I am really surprised when a small martini glass arrives, half full only, with three olives on a toothpick and none of the characteristic dewiness on the glass, indicating that it has been shaken, not stirred! My guess would be a shot of gin topped up with a fair amount of vermouth. Oswaldo, on the other hand, thinks he may be drinking a really large glass of pure tomato juice. Oh well - we would have gone to Harry’s Bar near the Opera, only the walk was too long on this no-Metro day. Back at the studio the television shows disruption in transport and travel and warns that it may continue. We’re concerned because we both have flights tomorrow: I fly to Denmark for 3 days and Oswaldo is scheduled to speak in Leipzig. What will happen to us?
PARIS GRINDS TO A HALT
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
THE LYCEE STUDENTS AT THE END OF OUR ROAD ARE IN THEIR USUAL HAPPY CLUSTERS, KISSING, SMOKING, CALLING OUT TO EACH OTHER, AS THE MARCH GOES ON ABOUT 100M UP THE ROAD
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