the French adapt somehow to the strike

This will be the sixth day of mobilization and perhaps the most important since the beginning of the social movement against the pension reform. All the unions have called for the country to be “stopthis Tuesday, March 7. Transport, schools, energy, public services… Many sectors will slow down. A few hours before the start of the movement, the French were looking for solutions on Monday. Many of them will obviously resort to teleworking. Clément Beaune, Minister Delegate for Transport called on all thoseable to telecommute to seize it“.

This is particularly the case of Charline, an employee at Oxygen, a communication company, who works in Toulouse. “I live in the Tarn, 45 minutes by public transport from my work. Tomorrow I will be working remotely“, she confides to the Figaro. This requires reorganizing appointments, even if it means using “Zoom or Google Meet in videothat his company makes available to reach its customers. When her presence at the office is essential, Charline arranges things differently. “During previous strikes, I happened to carpool when an important meeting was taking place at work. Luckily, a neighbor also works in Toulouse and has a car“.

Others, more fortunate, traveling by bicycle or on an automatic public transport line, will go to work “as per usual“says Hadrien, a consultant in Paris. “At each strike, line 1 and line 14 worked well, so I won’t be changing my plans on March 7“, he assures. Like Hadrian, Alexandra does not intend to upset her habits. This executive secretary, based in Paris, has even planned to take the metro and explains: “QWhen there are strikes there is nobody in transport. I take almost less time to get to work than when there is no strike“.

In many professions, the question of teleworking does not arise

Strike or not, many working people will have no choice but to adapt to get to their place of work. This is the case in the health sector. Timothée is an obstetrics gynecology intern in the Strasbourg region: “I usually take the TER every morning which makes Strasbourg-Haguenau. But every time there is a strike, I systematically take the car, without even checking the availability of trains“, he tells the Figaro. On several occasions since the beginning of the social movement, he happened to find himself at the station with his canceled train, when it was not announced. “In my job, I can’t take the risk of being late or absent“, he adds. If the strike continues on Wednesday and Thursday, he will do the same. The young doctor, resourceful, had by chance recovered a second-hand car at the end of 2022 “In his familyto make it easier to get around, and ensure a means of transport in any situation.

Read alsoJacques Julliard: “Pension reform, quickly, negotiate!”

Concerns around childcare are back

“I just learned at the end of the morning that my daughter’s teacher was on strike tomorrow.Violaine, a mother of two children who works in Rennes, will have to organize herself at the last minute for the care of her daughter. However, the school offers a reception service, but which, according to them, is poorly managed. She prefers to entrust her daughter to her parents who, by chance,are available and do not live too far away“. However, it happened during previous strikes that Violaine kept her daughter at home, working from home. “It’s not ideal, with a four-year-old you have to take breaks to deal with it. Sometimes I call on a babysitter in the afternoon to keep going“. But never for a whole day. Given the recurrence of mobilizations, it would cost him “too expensive“.

Violaine’s daughter is however enrolled in a private school. “In general, private teachers did not follow the strike movementsshe wonders. And Clément Beaune warned: “Thethings won’t stop on the evening of March 7“. In this case, Violaine will have no choice but to telecommute to keep her daughter at home.