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What I most hate about France

20th November 2007 by Helena 6 Comments  

I am lucky that I am not one of millions of ordinary French people trying to get to and from work today. For me the commute is easy. Out of bed and down the stairs to my office. But all over the country people are stranded, delayed, inconvenienced and for what? So that SNCF workers can retire aged 50.

Revolting

Sarko was voted in by the French. His mandate was reform, and heaven knows the country needs it. Who do these civil servants think they are helping by bringing France to a standstill? Themselves of course. This is not what the majority wants, otherwise we’d have Sego not Sarko. These are selfish people fighting for their own turf to the detriment of the majority.

The message is clear. France cannot afford to go on like it has been. France is going broke. People need to work longer hours for more years if she is to stand a chance of being economically viable. Although we don’t pay a huge amount of tax our social charges are totally horrendous. We have had to take out loans to pay them off.

“But if you’re ill you can claim money,” our accountant told us. I would rather take that risk and not have the charges. But this is where the French mentality differs from mine.

The school is on strike today. The teachers are taking part in what they call a “national movement”. National movement for what? National movement to work as little as possible. Luckily my in-laws are not on strike and the children have gone there for the day. I’m lucky they are English, striking just isn’t in their vocabulary. A bit like claiming.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007


Filed Under: France, Work, blog --> Tagged With: about, france

6 thoughts on What I most hate about France

  • Jonathan Miller says:
    20th November 2007 at 5:28 pm

    Liberté, égalité, fraternité – pish tosh.

    Stupidité, avidité & désesperé is more like it.

    Marianne wept.

  • Norrie H. says:
    20th November 2007 at 6:08 pm

    Strikes have become a national sport here in France. No matter the rights and wrongs of the case – let’s all join in.
    What makes one really sick about this one is the element of privilege and greed. This so called special status was granted to certain workers by Louis XlV in 1688! Are the strikers claiming that working conditions have not changed?

  • Graham says:
    20th November 2007 at 7:22 pm

    Dear Hélèna.

    Poor little English petals, “striking” isn’t in their vocabulary.

    Striking was in mine. In the 50’s, four months of winter, cycling 8 miles to school and back because of a bus strike. Train and mail strikes too numerous to mention. Newspapers even went out of print in the 60’s and 80’s. Miners almost destroyed the government and the country in ’84, ambulances left people to die in ’90, firemen too in 2002. Teachers took even longer holidays in 2002 but nobody missed them. British Airways in 2002 left a million stranded.

    “Striking” is definitely part of most English people’s vocabulary and has been an important factor in our society which should not be overlooked as an economic catalyst. France too has had its fair share and looks like it’s in for more.

    “Claiming”? Well, I’ve claimed and I’m not ashamed.

    Janou, a Sarko fan, is upset about all this turmoil. Her son was due to arrive today in Geneva for rehearsals before a gig on Friday….. but he’s delayed. It’s not Earth shattering is it? But it disturbs, and that’s what us comfy people don’t like.

    G.

  • Jacques says:
    21st November 2007 at 12:31 am

    Dear Helena,
    Not all SNCF employees can retire at 50. Only train DRIVERS can do so. And personally I’d rather be a passenger in a train with a fairly young driver than in one driven by some drooling senile.

    Dear Norrie H,
    Quite true, things have really changed since Louis XIV. The trains were much slower then.

  • snusmormor says:
    21st November 2007 at 10:35 am

    National Movement to work as little as possible sounds like a good idea to me. At least the French don’t just accept government’s dictates without a fight. Like a flock of Devon sheep and still feel that they can take their own destiny into their own hands. As for being broke, there is plenty of money around, it’s a case of redistribution of wealth. Call me an old-fashioned leftie but I still think society is there for the benefit of the people not the other way around!

  • Rupert says:
    22nd November 2007 at 10:21 am

    Graham is right to point out that there is nothing new in striking, although one assumes that even he wasn’t around to witness one of the most lethal strikes in history, the one described in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata when the women in Athens staged a ‘no sex’ strike to end the constant fighting…but while one can sympathise with striking when there is no other option – as a writer I find it easy to sympathise with the striking writers in Hollywood, and at least they are not disrupting people’s lives beyond depriving them of their daily fix of the Daily Show – what is happening in France seems to be a case of any public worker with a grievance, ie that they occasionally have to turn up to work, taking to the streets. I don’t see why fifty is too old to drive a train. My father is over eighty and charges around the countryside in his Jaguar..
    Anyway, enough of this. I’m going on strike.
    PS Smusmormor: You are an old-fashioned leftie! I hope the Red Brigade don’t come and get you…

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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