Non au CPE!

Last Tuesday none of the teachers thought it was worth me coming to school and facing the public transportation crises for the two dedicated students I might have (if I was lucky). So I spent the time cleaning my room and exploring Rouen a little in this time of strife. I was lazy and got up too late to catch a lot of the brouhaha (though I think I went in to early too, as it started up again after lunch). But I got pictures of a group of students blocking the door to their school, as well as a group of my students crossing the Seine of the way to lunch. They posed for a picture for me too...They seemed to be having a good time.

They told me there were over 50 thousand people demonstrating in Rouen that day, that they completely filled the road from the trainstation down Rue Jeanne D'Arc all the way across the Seine to the (somewhat shadier) Left Bank, a distance of 1.7 kilometers, or a little over a mile. There were about 3 million people demonstrating all over France.

The Parliament was discussing tossing the law. They didn't. Chirac made a few changes, but I don't know if it will be enough to avoid another huge strike next Tuesday.