Though I can't believe this, I am actually going to talk about politics, which I am completely not interested in. I have been learning a lot about politics in France, and I'm actually kind of intrigued. I know, it's crazy.
A few Sundays ago was the final tour of the French regional elections, and we have the results! George Freche wins! George Freche is, again, the president of the Languedoc-Roussillon region. Montpellier is actually the capital of this region, which I only recently found out. So, though Montpellier isn't as important in the big scene of France, it is important in regards to our region.
The elections in France are pretty different than those in the States. There are two tours, or rounds, of elections. In the first round, you receive a piece of paper with the candidates on it, and you chose one. You put your paper in an envelope, seal it, and then put it in a box. The vote is now cast. Once voting is finished, the votes are counted and the two candidates with the most votes move on to the next tour. The only time there is not a second tour is if a candidate gets more than fifty percent of the vote (I believe). In the second tour, you do the same thing, but pick one out of two. The votes are then counted, and there is a new person in charge. The votes are always manual; the French don't really believe in electronic voting and it's safety.
So that's about voting in France, now moving on to "faire la grève," or, to strike. Striking is very, very popular in France. I had heard this a lot before coming here, but I wasn't expecting to be affected by it. There have been quite a few "greves" lately, so I felt it necessary to touch on the subject.
In order to "faire grève" you need at least two people. Also, you have to give notice...I believe it's a couple weeks but don't quote me on that. You can also have a "greve d'urgence", but with that, you still have to give notice as soon as possible. I only recently found out about this because it happened here in Montpellier. The other Thursday night I was out with some friends and we were getting on the tram. Usually the board of tram times obviously just says how many minutes until the next tram, but there was something else scanning along the bottom of the screen. It said, emergency strike tomorrow. No trams or buses. I then noticed that the trams were stopping early, usually running until 1:30 in the morning, and instead, only till 12. Interesting. The next morning, I got up as usual and thought nothing of the strike. I went into town, walking because I'm not far, and saw no trams on the tracks. I also saw no buses the entire walk there. After having a fun day in town visiting with friends and going to my mom's hat show, I realize that many of my friends couldn't get into town because of this random strike. The tram and bus workers were striking because Thursday night someone had abused a tram conductor. I totally understand their reason for striking, but just imagine how inconvenient it is for people who have no other way of getting around.
Yesterday there was a national strike. I had no idea about this until my friend texted me and said, "can you text Kate and tell her to tell our professor I'll be late for class? The bus hasn't come yet." I read it and thought, that's weird, where are the buses? And then re-thought and texted her back and said, "of course, there must be a 'greve'", which there was. Luckily for me, when I arrived at my tram stop (where there are usually one or two other people and today around 25) the tram came a few minutes after. Before hopping on the tram, I checked the time board and of course, it gave me helpful information, "greve today". While on the tram, which is blue representing line 1, I saw the line 2 tram, which is full of flowers, on the line 1 track. Bizzare. I don't know why that was happening, but I did know that things were going to be messy. Also, at lunch at the university, there was barely any people working, and there was no silverware of cups, only plastic. Weird again. While I was in class there was a huge "manifestation" in place de la comedie. The crowd of strikers, yes crowd, walked all the way from comedie, to stade philipides, which is many tram stops away. I heard that this caused a lot a lot of problems. I'm sad I missed it because I think it would have been a good thing to see. I'm not so sad though because I know there will be more, and I know that I can't be in class for all of them.
That's some on French politics!
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