Ah, Les Grèves

From "Le Robert Micro"

1) grève n. f. Cessation volontaire et collective du travail décidée par des salariés ou par des personnes ayant des intérêts communs pour des raisons économiques ou politiques. >gréviste n. Personne qui fait grève.

However I disagree with this definition of a "grève," if we're talking about une grève en France. If its une grève americaine, then yes. That would be a voluntary and collective cessation of work decided by the salaried or by people having common interests for economic or political reasons. That's one of the only times you'll really see a strike
in the states. However in Paris, I prefer the dictionary.com english version:

2)strike n. : a temporary stoppage of something.

yes, nice and vague. that's how the french like their strikes. you can strike about anything you like. Ugly uniforms, gross weather, a bad steak tartare (or if you're our program's president, a non-crispy baguette)- just grab all your closest friends and get angry. That's why I think this final definition might be even more fitting:

3) grève n.f. I'm pissed. I hate Sarkozy. Lets all skip class and march in the streets today to show how pissed we are. I'll get my reserve of whistles and noise makers and we'll all make the evening news!

So, of course there's really something behind the striking, there's just an ongoing joke (especially for international students, because when universities here strike, we end up having to change our plane tickets till later to finish our exams) about the excessiveness of parisian grèves.

Anywho, the real story. I actually saw these passing my street this afternoon on my way to class.The Lyceens (high school students) of Paris had a demonstration today on the streets of Paris to protest against higher education reform and reduction of teaching positions in high schools, new reforms instituted by Nicholas Sarkozy's administration last year. The reforms allow universities to accept donations from private companies, a movement towards privatisation of education, as the French see it. I don't really know enough about the reforms to know what I'd think about them, though I would be disgruntled at reduced numbers of professors as well. We have the same problem of bad student:teacher ratios enough in the states (though fortunately not at Emory). It is however interesting and bizarre to see students so passionate/concerned about their education. I can't imagine this occuring in the states, or not as largely as this.
For the record I've been here three months and I've seen 3 huge strikes like this.