Vive La Belle France.
telegraph.co.uk
Young and full of hope for freedom. Paris has the original Statue of Liberty. They gave one to the USA [I suppose as a poke in the eye to the English]. France over a century became the opponent of freedom, reaching a nadir with the state terrorism of bombing the Rainbow Warrior in my village and murdering a young photographer leaving a fatherless family.
Now, a young blossom, Sabine Herold, renews hope.
<France's exhaustion with its unions has found its voice in a 21-year-old student, Sabine Herold, who is challenging the silent majority to revolt against the strikes crippling her country and causing havoc for British travellers.
With schools and government offices closed yesterday, Channel ferries halted, and airlines cancelling most of their flights to and from France, Mlle Herold called the union members 'reactionary egotists'
They "claim to defend public services but are just defending their own interests", she said.
With her pale blue mascara and long eyelashes, she makes an unlikely Joan of Arc. But her words have found an echo in large protests by students and parents against repeated strikes by teachers and threats to disrupt this summer's exam schedule.
She has also become an emblem for the many in French society who believe that economic reforms are long overdue. She blames President Jacques Chirac for caving in repeatedly during his career to union pressure. The many British travellers who have been affected by the strikes in France can only hope her campaign succeeds.
Faced by strikes by dockers and airport workers, British Airways cancelled 90 of its 120 planned flights between Britain and France yesterday, while Easyjet scrapped 37 and Bmi operated only six of its normal 24 flights.
P&O Ferries ran sailings between Dover and Calais until 7am British time, before a walk-out by dockers halted services.
Mlle Herold shot to prominence on May 25, when hundreds of thousands of union members marched through Paris to protest against the government's pension and de-centralisation reforms. She addressed 2,000 people in front of the Paris town hall.
She pointed to where the unions were marching and to loud applause shouted: "We will not give up the streets to them. For once, we are going to tell them 'No'.
"I have lessons and exams, but I have no bus service. I pay for my carte orange [a monthly public transport ticket] but I have no underground service. Later on, I will pay my taxes, but my children won't go to school. Like all of us here today, I am angry."
In the middle of the Iraq war, she and her friends demonstrated outside the American embassy in support of military action, a bold step considering the overwhelming opposition to the war in France. "There is a systemic opposition to America in France," she said yesterday.
Mlle Herold, who attends the prestigious Institut des Sciences Politiques in Paris, said: "The Left in France used to be reforming, but has become conservative, while the Right has gone the other way."
She had to walk only half an hour to her lessons yesterday morning, but she said the unions were "punishing the people who want to go to work, kids who want to take their exams. These strikes are a catastrophe for France".
On June 15 she plans to address a far larger crowd in the Place du Châtelet, assembled by her organisation, Liberté J'Ecris Ton Nom. The daughter of two teachers from Reims, Mlle Herold was not interested in politics until about two years ago.
Since then, she has been devouring the great texts of "classical liberalism", seizing on thinkers such as Hayek, one of Margaret Thatcher's favourites, and wondering where France went wrong. Liberal conservatives are a rarity in France where the Right-wing parties are much more centrist than in Britain or America.
Mlle Herold, however, is not alone in pining for change in France. Like many of her generation, she would rather go on to business school than the Ecole Nationale d'Administration, the civil servants' graduate school that trained most of France's current political and business elite, but is losing kudos as the French state loses respect.
"There is no value put on work in France," she said. "I've just come back from Hong Kong where people love to work. In France they are always looking for a way to get out of it."
During an exchange term at Birmingham University she was impressed not only by the beer but also by the British work ethic. "If people want to work, they can work. In France we have let the union minority take us all hostage." >
Dear Ken Junior, many or most of we Siers are old geezers with most of our lives behind us. We live in hope. It's great to see young people blossoming. Ken has sent me a picture of you all - I suppose you don't know you have spread around the world as far as New Zealand. A fine looking family.
We old geezers watch the littlies grow up from toddlers to young adults and the youngsters aren't even aware of our care. Nor would they want to know. They'd tell us to take a hike. But we are sage, old and wise and know that one of these days we are going to be decommissioned and the young will rule the roost. So we watch in hope that they will rule well.
I'm sorry to see your father have a major problem. He'd mentioned his tenuous health a couple of months ago [in regard to Sars]. Best wishes to you and your family. From what I saw, you have a good father, which to me is a top-rating part of a person, though it's a denigrated, emasculated job these days. Yay for Ken Senior.
A major stroke will presumably keep Ken Senior out of action, but please pass on my appreciation for his efforts over the last couple of years I've known him. Maybe he'll be able to sit up in bed and read some fine rants from the Foreign Affairs gang here, even if he can't participate, and that'll give him some pleasure.
Cyberspace has been a great medium for shrinking the world and it's really only just getting going. Ken has played a part in enabling We the Sheeple to have a say [even if we are ignored] and swap ideas and information, unfiltered by the old-time media. Let's hope he can be back in the saddle - the disruptive children in the classroom have been misbehaving in his absence.
It's no mean feat keeping a major Sier discussion on the rails - especially in such a contentious area as politics. Ken's done a great job. So, appreciation from me and a get well wish, and best wishes to you and the rest of your family.
From the sidelines,
Mqurice
PS: I know I'm being a bit melodramatic, but a major stroke in my book is a very serious thing. I hope it's not as major as I'm imagining from your brief description. |
