| DON YOCHAM
The French Front Line
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Hollywood’s writers might be on strike for bigger paychecks and all those juicy streaming residuals, but nobody knows how to strike like the French.
It’s basically a national pastime.
We yanks have baseball. The frogs their picket lines and protests.
As I was researching just how often French strikes go nationwide, I found instances every single year from 2013 to 2018 and two in 2019.
I suspect they just as consistently cast their bodies on the gears of industry every year leading up to and following that period. But confirming that suspicion would only pile more facts onto a big pile of the obvious.
When I spent a semester in college there in the early 90s, it was rail workers (it’s almost always the rail workers).
But I also vaguely remember truckers dumping truckloads of fish and apples on the roads as the French chafed under the weight uniformity laws imposed on them to pave the way for the European Union.
For 2023, it’s the threat of having to work two more years before they can retire on the government dole.
The excuse this time?
It seems that Fancy Manny – my nickname for France’s president Emmanuel Macron that I just came up with – has had enough with French democracy. He’s got a big problem to solve with respect to the government’s bloated budget.
Rather than letting the legislative process bog him down, he rammed “executive order” style with the blessing of the courts.
From this side of the pond, it’s impossible to tell whether the French are mad about the dictatorial process used to change the law or simply that they feel entitled to retire at age 62 on the government dole.
I suspect it’s mostly the latter.
But whatever reason the French believe is motivating their revolt this year, it’s important to see through to the true cause and effect at work here.
Social entropy and the political power centers desperate need to maintain control.
The center can no longer afford to risk a vote. And people long accustomed to an ever rising tide of entitlements don’t like it when their goodies get taken away.
The reaction of the French is just one small example of an insurrection with front lines emerging in every corner of the world.
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