vivement les grèves!

Today there is a strike. I'm in Paris. That's not unusual. But I'm always amazed by the attitude of some Parisian commuters during strike time. I'm English so maybe I have the old stiff upper lip thing going, but to use a cliché, we're all in the same boat, so why be crabby about it?

An example: so this morning the RER was crowded. No worse than a bad rush hour train but it was crowded. So everybody stayed just near the doors, with a metre of space behind them and refused to move. Because, dammit, they needed to be near the doors! Then the people wanting to get on the train got frustrated because of all those people near the doors.

"We want to be near the doors!" the people on the platform cried.
"No way José - we got here first!" the choir on the train answered.

Okay, they didn't really but you see what I'm getting at.

I saw people holding the pole (see previous post for my thoughts on this) and refusing to move. Really refusing. One woman tried politeness ("Excuse me, could you just take a step back?"). When that had absolutely no result (people gave her the non-look, usually reserved for people begging) she tried pushing. She was only little, so still no result. In the end she tried the plain rugby thrust movement, which made enough room for her to get on the trian without getting her bottom sliced off by the doors as they closed.

I was on a train of goats (the escaltors must be a bitch on their hooves - do goats have hooves?) - everyone had their place and were not going to budge.

The train finally pulled away with half the carriage comfortably spaced near the non-platform doors and the other half virtually standing on top of each other.

I did consider crying: "Why can't we all just get along? There's space for us all!" and hoping that someone somewhere would break out into song : "The sun'll come out tomorrow!!!!!!!" but instead I stuck with my mp3 and held onto the pole like everyone else.

Maybe I'll try singing this evening on the return trip...