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Post by Deleted on Apr 9, 2016 3:04:24 GMT
Kerouac, you mentioned, near the beginning of this thread, that you and a fellow employee joined a union, thus forcing your company into union negotions. You also mentioned you were elected by your fellow employees to represent them in the negotiations. Since I am a member of a union in the U.S., and only the members of the union are allowed to vote, this comment confused me. The other employees were not union members? Do you have any idea whether or not the high school protestors are attending school during the day? Every company with at least 50 employees has elections for employee representatives (who are in charge of labour relations and salary negotiations) and a social committee (which receives at least 1% of the salary mass from the company to finance trips, outings and other activities). There is a first round reserved for unions, for whom anybody can vote whether they are a member or not. If all of the spots on the committee have not been filled, there is a second round. Smaller companies do not have the social committee but still have the employee representatives, union members or not. As for the protestors being in school or not during the day, I have not seen any absenteeism figures in the press, but I'm sure that some of the people staying all night don't necessarily show up at school the next morning. I would say that most of the students are not staying all night, though, but are back home by the last metro at 1:30. Many of the others there are unemployed or professional activists, and they can stay until gently encouraged to leave at dawn. Thank you for explaining the purpose and process Kerouac. Is the Government still discouraging large groups of people from congregating or do they feel the threat level has gone down enough for public safety? The threat level is still considered to be high, but for this sort of event the police are being very discreet. In fact, I did not see a single policeman the other night although the crowd must have been full of plainclothes police. A big show of force would be very counterproductive. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 9, 2016 6:01:33 GMT
Since I had nothing better to do at 5:30 this morning, I hopped on a bike to see how a Nuit Debout finishes. I should have realised that all of the bike stations within 500m had been closed by the authorities.  I went up the Faubourg du Temple to the canal where a station was open. The street was still super busy with every single kebab place and half the cafés open.  It should be pointed out that there are two major rock clubs on this street, so it is pretty much like this every night.  Place de la République was a bit worse for wear, as expected.    People had not forgotten to light candles.   An ephemeral rock club was in full swing.  The shape on the steps is an independent volunteer cleaner, trying to pick up what rubbish he could. I saw 3 or 4 of them hard at work while others continued to throw bottles and papers everywhere.  I would have offered to help him if I had brought gloves. Without gloves it was out of the question -- too much nasty stuff.  |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 9, 2016 6:11:14 GMT
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Post by mossie on Apr 9, 2016 7:00:29 GMT
You are mad to leap about taking pics at such an ungodly hour, when all good people should be sleeping soundly in their own beds.
However, thank you very much for this entertaining and most informative thread.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 9, 2016 11:04:50 GMT
When I had to take the bike all the way to the canal, I was torn between returning to République or just walking up the canal. But then I decided that the completed work on the canal needs to be seen in full daylight.
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Post by htmb on Apr 9, 2016 12:29:57 GMT
Ah, Paris. The city of beauty and light.  Thank you for the above explanation and for braving the early morning elements. Having your newest photos certainly does help to expand this report even more fully. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2016 16:34:37 GMT
There has been a bit of turmoil since the weekend. There was a bit of tear gas on Saturday night when a group of 300 decided to march to the residence of the prime minister, who lives not too far away (on rue Keller just off rue de la Roquette if you're interested). This is the sort of event that makes one question the logic of spontaneous protests, since the prime minister was in Algeria on official business, and when they were informed of this, the reaction was along the lines of "why is he travelling to other countries when important things are happening in France?" This morning, the authorities decided on another clean sweep of Place de la République at 6 a.m. If only for hygiene, it was a good idea, because the cleaning crews were able to completely scrub it. The authorities also gave the authorisation for them to return tonight. Politicians on both sides have mixed feelings about this, since politicians do not like not understanding on which side they should take a stand, since they only want to be on the winning side. Some have dared to say "this is an excellent expression of grass roots democracy" while others take the stance of "France is on high terror alert at the moment and such gatherings should not be permitted." To further confuse things, the prime minister (back from Algeria) received a delegation of about a dozen student leaders today and made some announcements that satisfied them very much -- but in a movement like this, the student leaders are not controlling the people at Place de la République in any case. At best, the things they say might help to defuse the movement. I passed through République twice today and it was indeed quite tidy, except for the fact that most of the pavement is covered with painted slogans, as are the wooden benches. That isn't really important at the moment. The first hardcore protesters were already there around noon, because they have nothing better to do, and the sound system for tonight's speakers was being reinstalled. Police presence was pretty massive, with about a half dozen police buses parked and waiting on the south side of the square and plenty of gendarmes and police making themselves visible on the square itself. The authorities have the added advantage that it has been relatively wet all day, so more people will stay home. Wait and see. |
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Post by lagatta on Apr 12, 2016 1:45:01 GMT
I have a photo of a couple of friends at the protests. One was born in 1938 (though he is a very fit fellow). I don't know exactly how old his wife is, but she is younger then him and older than me. I remember the friend who took the photos of them as a kid, but now he has a pubescent daughter and is in young-middle age.
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Post by patricklondon on Apr 12, 2016 7:12:50 GMT
the residence of the prime minister, who lives not too far away (on rue Keller just off rue de la Roquette if you're interested). That seems a quite modest address (though I suppose it's no clue to how big his home is). Is it a matter of choice, or is there no "official residence" bit in the Matignon? (Most British PMs move into the flat at 10 Downing St and "live over the shop": Cameron has let out his own London house, and as part of the fall-out from the Panama Papers business has felt himself forced to publish among other financial details that he's getting £100k a year rent for it). My blog | My photos | My video clips"too literate to be spam" |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 12, 2016 10:14:58 GMT
All of the government ministers have official residences but most of them don't live in them if they already have an address in Paris.
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Post by bjd on Apr 12, 2016 12:36:13 GMT
When our daughter went to university in Paris, we looked to buy a small apartment for her to live in. I visited one on Rue Keller but decided I didn't like the street that much. At the time (1998), there were small shops catering to rather odd tastes and a gay prayer hall. I imagine Valls's apartment is bigger than the one I went to see, even though the street is not fancy on the outside.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 15, 2016 18:18:07 GMT
Today I had lunch with two former colleagues who are still employed at the salt mine. We discussed a wide variety of subjects but it was inevitable that we arrive at the subject of "Nuit Debout" sooner or later. I said that I had been there and enoyed seeing it with a bit of nostalgia, because it was everything I wanted to do when I was 20. Not so much now. One of the colleagues said with a touch of hopelessness "my daughter goes there every night." I was a bit amused because we all know that she has two daughters, the obedient good one and the free-spirited bad one, so there was no need to ask to which daughter she was referring. But there was no condemnation in her tone of voice, just an inability to understand the event.
There have been quite a few trashers in recent days, which dismays the idealists at République just as much as the general public. The riot squad is cracking down more and more while trying to maintain the serenity of the peaceful people in the square. I don't know if it will be possible much longer.
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Post by chexbres on Apr 16, 2016 12:56:01 GMT
I took the bus up to Montmartre to buy some fabric around noon yesterday. I didn't expect to see so many people there at that time on a Friday, but when I came back that way around 6 PM, Republique was almost completely filled. The riot vans and so forth were on their way, too, even though nothing had happened, yet.
There were a lot of people buying as much beer and wine as they could carry - I'm sure the nearby supermarkets were selling out.
I didn't hear about the people taking off to interrogate Hollande until today. Wonder who had that bright idea?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2016 13:41:58 GMT
They claim they have no leaders so we must assume they all had the same idea independently and spontaneously.
The authorisation to be on the square tonight has again been renewed, but they are saying that the groups must clear out by 1 a.m. 'or else.'
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Post by Deleted on Apr 17, 2016 13:21:28 GMT
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Post by lagatta on Apr 20, 2016 13:04:19 GMT
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 20, 2016 16:10:52 GMT
Just now catching up to this extremely interesting renewal of the thread. When the established order fails to address the concerns of such a wide spectrum of its citizens, protest is often the best and only way to raise a wake-up call.
Because I live in an area of almost constant protest, I will say that too much protesting over minor issues can have the unfortunate effect of the citizenry ignoring legitimate protesting about major issues.
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Post by chexbres on Apr 20, 2016 19:47:38 GMT
I would say you've just about hit the nail on the head, bixa. Most of the time, it seems that all the protest marches in Paris are just an excuse to take a day off and get some exercise. Sometimes, these protests lead to minor changes, but it doesn't seem to me that it amounts to anything much more than that.
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Post by Deleted on May 9, 2016 12:12:43 GMT
The month of May got off to a bad start with our aspiring revolutionaries. The trashers from the 'black bloc' decided that the police and riot squad were not being exterminated fast enough and that not enough examples of capitalist domination were being destroyed. So they did a bit of rioting for three nights and for some reason the 300 of them did not manage to overthrow the government, but they smashed quite a few windows and burned some cars and also burned the principal entrance to the République metro station.  This leaves harmless dopers to figure out how to implement a new lifestyle for Parisians.  All kidding aside, the people in the neighbourhood are quite fed up as Nuit Debout continues on a diminished basis. The originators of the movement completely understand that the black bloc group totally discredited them and are meekly accepting to go home around midnight every night... or else. |
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