DATA, pg.16 (AP) -- 12: Vacation days the average person in the United States has, according to a survey of workers in the U.S., Germany, the Netherlands, Britain, Canada and France, which tops the list with an average of 39 days off a year.
Thirty-nine business days. Seven+ weeks off.
THE DAY FRANCE WAS ASKED TO WORK FOR THE OLD
There was no mail, of course: La Poste was on strike."Drôle de lundi" (What an odd Monday) was the headline in Le Parisien - if, that is, you could find a copy, because most of the news stands in Paris stayed shut. Le Figaro preferred: "Whitsun, a Black Monday for solidarity".
"Bloody ridiculous," said Marcel Boulard, a doctor walking to his surgery along the all but deserted rue du Quatre Septembre near the Opéra. "I don't object to giving up something for the elderly in principle, but I do object to being told how and when to do it. Particularly, I have to say, by this government."
Well, on the evidence of M. Boulard, French principle appears intacto. And for the French principle is foremost an object of admiration, a thing to gaze upon, a pretty notion to ornament the mind -- not a spur to act accordingly. And of course who wants to be bossed about by a government elected by a mere 82% of the polity? No sober French person. In France, national solidarity is circumscribed by the individual.
Mr Raffarin first asked the nation to go to work on Whit Monday [a Christian observance] after the heatwave of August 2003 that killed 15,000 people. The extra social security contributions and taxes raised by the National Solidarity Day would go to a new fund for the vulnerable. At the time, polls showed 84% of the French backed the idea.But a display of national solidarity and fraternity this was not. Bus, tram and metro services in 90 towns and cities including Marseille, Toulouse, Lyon, Nantes, Lille and Bordeaux were severely disrupted (and the metro in Paris was only working because all staff were given a €100 bonus). In some school districts, only 25% of teachers showed up. Many leftwing regional and local councils were closed in protest.
In the private sector, hundreds of companies, including Shell and the leading commercial broadcaster TF1, chose to give their employees the day off and pay into the solidarity fund from their corporate treasuries, rather than face workforce anger and sky-high absenteeism.
"A particular and lamentable fiasco," was how Le Figaro summed it up in its editorial. "The French prefer to take refuge in egoism and individualism ... and the resulting civil disobedience prompts neither debate nor scandal. What reigns here is each for himself, and the cult of self."
Meanwhile, Jack and crew importune French patriots to look in on Mamie et Papy before slathering themselves with cocoa butter on the care-free beaches of France.
I wonder if Zoomer has ever had the occasion to visit Breast, L'orient, or St. Nazaire?
The reason I ask is there is a fellow who claims that once upon a time, Frenchmen went to work dilligently and reported on time, working long hours to produce a superior product without complaint.
Back when they were working for the Nazi's the might of French industry was felt full force.
In Breast, L'orient, and St. Nazaire there are foreinsic artifacts testifying to this presdigious French industry. I'll quote from the fellow's post (scroll down to post # 3 to read the rest of it);
Huge steel reinforced submarine pens were rapidly constructed by the French workers-without any of the strikes that so plagued any serious defense construction after 1929-and were so well built that they are still used today.The German military engineers were very impressed: Even Her Krupp made it a point to let Hitler know what a bang-up job his new allies (and business partners) had done. French industry was mobilized for the German war effort with little disruption and, even when the Allied forces were about to capture Paris itself in the summer of 1944, loyalty to the occupying Nazis was still a potent force. Just a few weeks before Paris fell, 40,000 Milice-the official arm of the collaborationist security forces in the capital-staged a huge march past Les Invalides to cheering crowds. Even as the Germans were mining the monuments and public works of Paris for total destruction-as ordered by Hitler but not carried out by General Coldtitz, Parisians seemed to approve of the Germans as opposed to the Americans and British.
So it seems, Frenchmen have been known for self sacrifice on occasion in their history, it just has to be for the right cause.
