Paris, and in fact the rest of France probably, is in full preparation for a big general strike next thursday. Although in the past seven months we experienced some strikes, with minor invonveniences, it wasn't at the scale of this one. Apparently, all public transport is out for at least a day. Even the minimum service, required by the government, won't help us this time.

That this was going to be a big one, I realized in the office. Colleagues are not only talking about it, but also preparing for it. A good-bye lunch for a colleague has been put forward, meetings for Thursday are being cancelled, colleagues that were supposed to come over from our other offices are postponing trips and colleagues living in other cities or countries are going home a day early. I will probably work from home, a luxury my m/gl does not have. How she will go to the office, remains to be seen. If she's lucky, she can get a taxi, but they will also probably be overbooked and unavailable.

The amazing thing is, that our French friends and colleagues take it as a fact of life. They're not really annoyed by it, although in general it seems that the tolerance for striking is diminishing in France. I always have found it a rather irritating way of negotiating. I understand that it has been a very powerfull weapon in France, with the unions getting mostly what they want out of it. But what are the costs to the rest of society? And how long will people put up with being victimized? In the Netherlands some of the unions are transforming their ways already. They have public friendly actions. Related to public transport, that would mean operating as usual, but giving the public a free ride (opening gates, no ticket control). This way, the action hurts where you want it to hurt, without the collateral damage.