Today there was an auto école strike. The instructors got into their cars and drove around the city at about 5km per hour thereby jamming traffic for hours. I took a video on my camera phone as I rode my bicycle home from school. I can watch it on my phone. I am trying to add it to this post. I have a new computer. I am trying to convert an mp4 to an mpeg-4 or something like that. I have tried Quicktime, handbrake, Quicktime Pro, etc and no luck. I’ll post this video as soon as I can convert it. It shows traffic backing all the way up a major street, Rue de Metz. You can hear the cacophony of horns honking and see the sheer number of cars. I will look for a good explanation of why they went on strike. This time I think it is for a very god reason. It is not always the case.
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I think it has something to do with the lack of inspectors (government employees) to give exams and the consequence that it takes too long to get your exam scheduled – and when you fail the first time (as a lot of people do) it may take up to 6 months for a second go.
While the driving schools are private companies, the exams are given only by government employees. More frequent exams = more government employees, OR, let the schools give the exams.
There were proposals floated to privatize the exam process (the fonctionnaires didn’t like that) and to force auto écoles to post their results (the school owners didn’t like that).
It is certainly more complex than this, but this is what I took away from the news reports.
This was essentially what we talked about in my French class, but I had wanted to look it up online and see if there were some other element to it. I guess that is all. It seems like this cold only benefit the French and cut down o the time it takes to get a license. Some proposals that have a dubious economic element to them I can see being opposed to but how would the civil servants be adversely affected? I was hoping there was something like this that I had yet to hear. Is it purely a matter of “the state” shouldn’t privatize anything, except the things it has already privatized.
I’m sorry for the obvious inconvenience to other drivers, but I think this is quite funny. At least, you had a bike with which to get around.
They called it something like like un greve d’escargots. I like the name.