In the international press, as you can imagine, at present, France is not exactly presented as the paradise of cheese and golden beaches where it is good to laze around during the summer holidays. Not exactly. TotalEnergies, CGT and EDF oblige, we are in full sequence on the Gallic revolts and the hot autumn of the protesting people. And the longer it lasts, the more commentators take a stand.
Those who piqued our curiosity at the end of the week came from Switzerland, Belgium and Spain and have in common to look into the structural aspects of the strike in the refineries. The evening, in Brussels, underlined the reasons for this stalemate in the crisis (which would not have happened in the same way in Belgium): France is distinguished by a minority but determined trade union landscape; by a lack of a culture of compromise; and by abandoning the indexation of salaries to inflation, in particular. The country, in Spain, noted the eternal slowness of political reaction, and Blickfree Swiss visibly exasperated by the spectacle, spoke of “this permanent political disaster that is, in France, social opportunism. Rather than walking away