Tag: protest

‘Everyone is very worried’: Paris shops hit by ongoing strike


Three weeks before Christmas, Paris’s landmark department stores are virtually empty of shoppers as a result of the ongoing transport strike. Shopkeepers are worried for their future if it continues.

December is the most important month for shopkeepers, but Paris shops had a distinct lack of customers for the first Saturday of the month.

Landmark department stores, Galeries Lafayette and Printemps, had few customers on Saturday, December 7. Three Saturdays before Christmas, it was also day three of a transport strike protesting the government’s proposed pension reform.

This strike has paralysed much of Paris and has been termed ‘unlimited’, which means there is no set finish date. There are genuine fears that it could last at least another week; some are even predicting it might continue until Christmas.

There were some cars on Boulevard Haussmann and on other main streets, but the pavements were noticeably thin on pedestrians. There was a distinct absence of crowds in the traditional build-up to Christmas that many shops depend on. Few were stopping to admire the Christmas windows

‘We’re fearing for our survival’: Independent shops at risk

If the big department stores are worrying about their revenues, small independent shops have to worry about their actual survival.

“We’re fearing for our survival,” stated the union representing independent shopkeepers in a letter published in Le Parisien this week, imploring shoppers not to let the transport strike stand in their way and to shop in this month crucial to shopkeepers.

“For more than a year, there have been protests every Saturday by Yellow Vests, lawyers, police officers, nurses… and our customers have turned on their heels.”

“In Paris, Lille, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Rouen, many of us saw our turnover drop. Some of us are drowning in bank charges, struggling to repay loans and have even closed down shops,” the union wrote.

Shops are the hearts of cities, they appealed, but customers are the heart of merchants. Without customers pushing through the door, they will have to shut and cities will die [ . . .  ]

Read more at FRANCE 24: ‘Everyone is very worried’: Paris shops hit by ongoing strike

Violence against women: tens of thousands of people in the street, “a historic mobilization”

March against violence against women took place everywhere in France this Saturday. They brought together tens of thousands of people in Paris and in about thirty cities. The collective #NousToutes welcomes a historic mobilization.

The collective #NousToutes greets ” the biggest march in the history of France ” against gender-based violence. Tens of thousands of people marched this Saturday in Paris and in thirty cities in France to denounce violence against women and too many feminicides since the beginning of the year. 

Thirty or so organized marches brought together 150,000 people, according to the feminist collective #NousToutes, including 100,000 in Paris . The Occurrence cabinet counted 49,000 protesters in the capital during its count for a media collective.  Continue reading “Violence against women: tens of thousands of people in the street, “a historic mobilization”” →

Fêter Noël ?

Sunday December 2, 2018, early morning, I found! says Jacques Noyer, former bishop of Amiens. I have found what the Church of France should say about this month-end insurrection we know.

She should announce that we will not celebrate Christmas this year. December 25 will be a day like any other. Nothing in the churches: no office, no nursery, no children. We will return to ordinary Sundays because Advent will not take place.

She will say that our people are not in a state of mind that allows them to celebrate Christmas. The cry of despair that runs through it is incompatible with the mystery of Christmas, with the hope of Advent, with the welcome of a foreign child.

I may be old-fashioned but I remember the Christmas of my childhood. It was not just the end of the month that was difficult. But at Christmas we forgot everything to rejoice in what we had. The most modest families were left with the little they had. In the night, the poor felt rich from the roof over their heads, the improved meal of their plate, the extra log that heated the house and especially the chance to have a dad, a mom, brothers and sisters who loved him. [ . . . ]

Continue at SAINT MERRY: Fêter Noël ?