With over 3.5 million protesters in a single day and 4,000+ farmer actions in 2024 alone, France treats protest as civic duty—not spectacle. Meanwhile, 132 million Americans line up for Black Friday
This is a very interesting post, and very timely considering what is going on in the USA. It does seem like Americans can't get off their duff to protest as their/our country slides into authoritarianism.
But I really do not agree with you that French people consider protest as a "civic duty." A right? Sure. A way of life? For some. A duty? Nope.
And I agree with Suzanne that the timing and target of the protests often seem almost cruel. When the SNCF announces they're going on strike and that they're going to target the school holidays, perhaps even Christmas, I'm not sure what they're accomplishing.
I think a lot of this also rest on some of my earlier impressions of protest when I first got here. After having lived with them for another two years, I’ve heard a lot more complaints for most people, even as they seem to support it as their basic right.
And I think I tried to get to that towards the end, where I mentioned that there was all these protests, and yet people in charge just go ahead and do what they’re intending to do in any case.
Yes, you're right, and I think that may be what frustrates some people, myself included, who may support some of the causes despite being slightly to highly inconvenienced by the protests themselves. But by this point, certain strikes just annoy me, especially the SNCF ones and, sometimes, the school ones. Mind you I was a former teachers' union activist and local elected union official in the USA! Context changes things.
Yes. I support them as well and I’m third generation in unions, was a union rep at my school, etc. but I don’t think the nyc teachers union ever went on strike when I was there.
Unions are so separated in the us. Every small district has their own and the state ones only have so much ability to coordinate
Endless protests, zero results and lots of chaos especially when it involves transportation. Inevitably inconveniencing every school holiday. It’s extremely annoying (IMO). I remember once, on a ski holiday in the Alps, there was a one day chair lift strike. Total BS.
There’s another big function of the size of the protest here, and it’s the fact that some of the unions are absolutely massive. I think by the sheer numbers of protests, the United States does more of them, but they’re smaller in scale, simply due to the fact that, in the case of teachers unions, for example, There are many smaller unions rather than the one large national one. So organization is functionally kind of atomized .
One part of it that is kind of an addressed is taking care of the rest of society, like when parents are given short notice and need to get childcare all of a sudden. A lot of these things come up very quickly, without a lot of time for people to really plan and prepare.
They most often are, but the ones when we arrived had ceased garbage collection, there were bonfires all over the city, shipping places were blockaded, shopping centers in some places, and gas shortages as well. It was hard to not have some interruption once some of the grocery store shelves were getting lean.
This is a very interesting post, and very timely considering what is going on in the USA. It does seem like Americans can't get off their duff to protest as their/our country slides into authoritarianism.
But I really do not agree with you that French people consider protest as a "civic duty." A right? Sure. A way of life? For some. A duty? Nope.
And I agree with Suzanne that the timing and target of the protests often seem almost cruel. When the SNCF announces they're going on strike and that they're going to target the school holidays, perhaps even Christmas, I'm not sure what they're accomplishing.
I hear you (read you?).
I think a lot of this also rest on some of my earlier impressions of protest when I first got here. After having lived with them for another two years, I’ve heard a lot more complaints for most people, even as they seem to support it as their basic right.
And I think I tried to get to that towards the end, where I mentioned that there was all these protests, and yet people in charge just go ahead and do what they’re intending to do in any case.
Yes, you're right, and I think that may be what frustrates some people, myself included, who may support some of the causes despite being slightly to highly inconvenienced by the protests themselves. But by this point, certain strikes just annoy me, especially the SNCF ones and, sometimes, the school ones. Mind you I was a former teachers' union activist and local elected union official in the USA! Context changes things.
Yes. I support them as well and I’m third generation in unions, was a union rep at my school, etc. but I don’t think the nyc teachers union ever went on strike when I was there.
Unions are so separated in the us. Every small district has their own and the state ones only have so much ability to coordinate
Endless protests, zero results and lots of chaos especially when it involves transportation. Inevitably inconveniencing every school holiday. It’s extremely annoying (IMO). I remember once, on a ski holiday in the Alps, there was a one day chair lift strike. Total BS.
Could talk about this for days.
Good article 👌
There’s another big function of the size of the protest here, and it’s the fact that some of the unions are absolutely massive. I think by the sheer numbers of protests, the United States does more of them, but they’re smaller in scale, simply due to the fact that, in the case of teachers unions, for example, There are many smaller unions rather than the one large national one. So organization is functionally kind of atomized .
One part of it that is kind of an addressed is taking care of the rest of society, like when parents are given short notice and need to get childcare all of a sudden. A lot of these things come up very quickly, without a lot of time for people to really plan and prepare.
Perhaps you’re right but I don’t recall that the protests interfered with the general population. Always seemed more self contained. Am I wrong?
They most often are, but the ones when we arrived had ceased garbage collection, there were bonfires all over the city, shipping places were blockaded, shopping centers in some places, and gas shortages as well. It was hard to not have some interruption once some of the grocery store shelves were getting lean.
I was talking about the U.S. being self contained.
Here (France) these protests disrupt society. Like the situation you just mentioned. It’s endless.