Day four: The strike escalates

Update: Day seven and still no train service. Thousands of protesters took to the streets across France as teachers and civil servants staged a 24-hour walkout, joining striking transport and energy workers. C'est ferme! The Paris metro map at my neighbourhood metro station. On day four of the Paris transit strike over workers' pension and retirement benefits, train service is erratic at best. Line 10 has remained closed for days, with no alternative routes offered. This presents a problem, as I must return to the Antiquites Brocante at Bastille to pick up the second of two antique Moroccan lanterns purchased last week - and the brocante ends Sunday!

An electronic sign at the metro station provides a status report for metro lines and the RER trains. On Friday night, David picked up his son and daughter arriving from London at the Eurostar terminal at Gare de Nord. What should have been a 20-minute drive across town, took three hours, due to heavy traffic. Aren't you glad you're not in Paris at the moment?

Comments

[Yoli]

I am so sorry you are going through this, I hope it ends soon.

[Catherine]

Good luck for picking up your purchases!

[Jeanne]

I hope this gets settled soon.
Safe travels my friend.
Love Jeanne

[Catalina]

That's crazy....too much for people just trying to go work. I am feeling as doing a customer strike afterwards...

[Vida]

How awful... good luck with the next few days, hopefully it will all be resolved soon... Vida x

[naturegirl]

Tara I get nervous reading your signs posted here ...how will we be able to read and understand when we come over!! Yikes! I had better get some lessons! I hate that 3 HRS!!!! Merci..aNNa

[JanePoe (aka Deborah)]

Actually, we relied so heavily on the metro whilst in Paris that I truly am glad I'm not there at this exact moment. Bonne chance, mon ami. xx, JP/deb

[chiefbiscuit]

Strikes appear to me to be things that are unfair and fair all at the same time ... very inconvenient. It's sort of being selfish to be selfless ??

[rochambeau]

Sorry Tara,
May all be back to normal soon
and in hopes you secure your Moroccan lantern without problems tomorrow!

[Betty C.]

I love the term "mouvement social." It makes it sound like a fun thing!

[Neil]

Withe writers striking in Hollywood, and Broadway workers striking in New York, it seems as if November is strike month!

[M erisi's Vienna]

I am so sorry about your lives being disrupted by this strike. When I still lived in Italy, scioperi were quite common, sometimes unannounced. Once I ended up for hours in a train in the middle of the countryside, on a blistery hot day, on my way from Rome to Naples, when they Ferrovie dello Stato went on strike unannounced.
Thankfully, it took me only 10 minutes to get to school and in later years only 45 to walk to work.

[materfamilias]

I don't know -- you certainly have my sympathy, but since I'd be on holiday and could afford the time to walk, I'd probably still want to be there. When you're trying to get to work and get errands done in a timely fashion, it would be no fun at all though.
Hope you don't mind,but I'm tagging you to post eight random things about yourself. The instructions for this meme are posted at http://materfamiliasknits.blogspot.com/ where I've linked to you. I've also said, in my post, that I only want those I've tagged to participate if it suits your plans for your blog -- we should all be "blogging without obligations" after all!

[Cherie]

I feel for you and everyone else in your beautiful city. When strikes happen which are intended to cripple the system it affects so much. Hopefully it won't drag on for too much longer!