Why do french strike?

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Justinou

Why ?? I'm French

So Strike it's law !
We Can !!!

When french are not ok with the government , french Strike !!!

voilà
bye

Turbo Lag

They are far too used to striking, and their unions are still so strong compared to ours.

Because of that, they already work fewer hours, have longer holidays, and get paid more than us, yet still feel the need to strike. It must be an inherent trait in humans (to take the easiest path), and the French system allows them to follow it.

Austerlitz

because we want to express our opinion instead of following our government at any prize.

@macum and foo fighters : your answers just reveal a primary francophobia that isn't based on anything. Milan Kundera, born Czech, said : "Francophobia exists, and it's a planetary mediocrity".

meko76

Because they can.

katya

Many groups strike for various reasons. For example, there have been a lot of teacher strikes as a result of education "reforms" which have cut a lot of jobs, reduced the lengths of degrees, etc. There are often transportation strikes in regards to job cuts as well.

These strikes irritate me, an American living in France, not just for the inconvenience but because I feel they (strikes) are really abused. I could understand way back when all the awful working conditions and that strikes were effective, but nowadays, these workers do not have bad conditions!

I also think that they strike simply because they can!

nevermind

Because they are brought up to stand up for what they believe and not to conform to other people's expectations.

Diana M

To repeat previous answers: "because they can", they are also encouraged to do it, those who don't bother speaking their minds they'd rather blindly follow the herd than to be called a fascist.

French people are extremely protective of their "opinions" out of spite. Most of the time they're repeating what some loud mouth, revolutionary-thinking, far-left winger is saying at a union party. The sad part about it is that they start promoting their ideas in colleges and universities through the teachers.

These "activists" want to make things change, to "fight the power" while in reality they're doing everything they can to protect their safety-net-government work ("fonction publique"), 2 months of paid vacation, etc. These left-wing unions are actually conservatives, always protesting against every reform that the government has decided to make.

It's like when you pull a dog's leash, it triggers the opposing reaction in him and he will put all his body weight into his collar. So unless you train your dog he'll never know that if he wants to get along with his master he needs to walk gently beside him.

patrice

we strike because we can !!! because it's the only thing to do when one deride at our rights...

we always have something to say !!! we don't follow everething because someone says "it's good for you" ... We think ....

omegaman

As a happy ex-pat living in france..I would say that the reason they strike so much is because unlike back in the UK;they have the worlds best transport infrastructure,the worlds best health care;clean streets;police who actually have the right to shoot ***-holes who pull a knife on them;an elected prime minister!!(unlike gorden brown);...I hope your not patriotic? as the UK is currently considered the worst place in europe!,bad public transport,hospitals,no policing,dirty streets and all this because good old england has no" right to strike "like they do over here in france,they can still fight for what they believe in without being sacked for it!!!...I would never go back to "third world england!" except as a vigilante to eradicate all those scumbags,nuff said?

Johnny Handsome