The end of the Protests, By Gian Sexsmith

The end of the Protests, By Gian Sexsmith

After weeks of strikes, school protests, blockades, gas shortages and some violence France has begun to get back on track. The pension has passed raising the legal minimum retirement age from sixty to sixty- two. This should become a law by mid November.

France is picking up its streets from all the trash left and businesses now counting the cost of all the strikes. What has France learned? That strikes do not do the same damage as they used to. This is because now with people striking it doesn’t cause people to not get to work and people who do strike are no longer paid. This being the case, local bosses have turned to other ways to disrupt and stop people getting to work. They have turned too blockades on oil depots or getting a blockade of cars to go slow on the highways.   

“As said in the economist, In 1995 the government backed down because unions were able to cripple the country with public-transport strikes.” Now Nicolas Sarkozy didn’t back down to the strikes and kept the retirement age the same. Nicolas Sarkozy took a bet that there was more people striking that would accept the change, once the pension was passed and stop protesting even though they said they wouldn’t accept it.

Now with the strikes over France has the chance to go back to everything being normal and everything running smoothly again. Gas stations open, kids back in school, there wont be over a million people in the streets protesting and even flight will be landing on time and not getting cancelled.