“No deregulation! No deregulation!” These were the cries I heard as I left the doctor’s office near my home. I had fallen ill for the first time since I had begun studying abroad, and as I made my way to the local pharmacy I encountered a herd of people dressed in long white coats, picketing and yelling: “No deregulation, no deregulation.” I was at first taken aback by the massive parade of thousands of people marching down the street escorted on all sides by dozens of police officers. After several moments though, I grinned and realized I had come across yet another group of French strikers. My amusement at the phenomenon, rarely seen in the United States, quickly disappeared when I understood that the group yelling before me represented nearly all of Paris’s pharmacists. An elderly woman waiting for the strikers to pass so she could continue on her way informed me that only 10 percent of pharmacies were open in Paris, the legal minimum. When I inquired as to why they had taken to the streets, she told me that we were protesting the government’s plan to deregulate the industry, opening it up to outside competition.
Unaccustomed to such a situation, I was angered by the inconvenience the strike caused me. One pharmacy was open several blocks from my home, and when I arrived there I saw the waiting line stretch down the block. I expected those waiting in line to share my frustration, but no one seemed bothered. I was shocked.
I have come to realize since this first experience that strikes and the ability to protest are an important part of French culture. It is a right guaranteed by the French constitution and is understood to be one of the most powerful tools of the employee against his employer. My host family explained to me that no one likes strikes, but everyone understands their importance. Support varies for strikes depending on their cause, but people are generally supportive of the strikers. Their effectiveness lies in the synchronized effort of employees to abandon their work until the change the strikers wish to see is realized or until a compromise is reached. The most effective strikes inconvenience everyone and push the employer or the government to renegotiate its terms to avoid profit losses or potential civil unrest. After inquiring about the subject to one of my professors, I learned that unlike other European countries, unions call on their members to strike because they feel it is the only thing the government responds to. It seldom renegotiates its controversial plans in the absence of a strike. The pharmacist strike lasted just 24 hours until the government backed off its plans to deregulate the industry, but, in early September, Air France pilots went on strikes for two weeks, causing the company to lose hundreds of millions of dollars until it backed off plans to reduce short-haul flight hours of its pilots.
In the next few days, for example, nearly the entire urban transportation system of Paris will be shut down because of strikes—a system that transports over four million people a day throughout the city—and school and work are not set to be cancelled. This creates an interesting problem for the students at my school who live far away, some of whom, like myself, are several miles from campus, and have midterms this week. Despite the inconvenience that this causes me, I support their cause. The strike protests against efforts of the government to privatize parts of the transportation industry, a move that would cut a significant portion of jobs and lower safety standards. For those unaccustomed to strike culture, adjusting can take time, but I have begun to embrace the activism strike culture represents.
Eric Zemmali is a 2016 graduate of Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service who majored in science, technology, and international affairs. Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, he spent the fall 2014 semester in Paris, France studying energy markets, economics, and political science at Sciences Po and blogging for the Berkley Center's Junior Year Abroad Network.
