PARIS — France has been crippled for more than a week by a wave of strikes against President Nicolas Sarkozy's economic reforms. Aboard a sort of Noah's ark of labor unrest has been the typical French mix: public transit workers, civil servants, teachers, nurses, tobacco shop owners, air traffic controllers, fishermen. Even opera stagehands.
On Thursday, nearly half of France's universities were shut down by protests, and soon lawyers and judges are planning to walk out over their own grievances.
The traffic chaos and street demonstrations stir up memories of all the yesteryears in a France that is fond of revolution. But this time something has changed.
The public has had it.
Stranded commuters and students missing first-semester exams, among others, are not just frustrated but also angry at those striking in the name of leftist ideology or fighting to preserve special privileges such as retirement on a full pension at age 50.
The public may doubt that Sarkozy can fulfill all of his election promises, but it also appears to be tired of unions tying up the streets. By Thursday, evidence that the unions had run into a determined president and public that stuck behind him was accumulating as many of the major rail unions voted to return to work, thereby easing the transit calamity, even as negotiations go on.
For all the talk about the strength of the French labor movement, only 7% of workers are unionized, a smaller percentage than in the United States. And even in the ranks of those striking, there are now divisions. On Wednesday, some unions were forced to disown saboteurs who set fire to the tracks for high-speed trains, further delaying an already stalled system.
And some students are working against the strike plans of other students.
Take, for example, Julie Coudry.
She is president of the Student Confederation, a national organization that split four years ago from the main student union.
"They were living in the past, fighting the same old ideological fights with the government," Coudry says. "We think a union should be part of what a university will be in the future, not just there to protect the past. We have to imagine and reinvent our universities. . . . And in France, we have a long way to go."
At 28, Coudry is an economics major at the Sorbonne, the starting point of the 1968 student uprisings. She has supported herself by working as a barmaid and for trade unions over the last nine years of an education that has been prolonged by leading previous student strikes and involvement in national elections.
In her signature beret and black turtleneck, she may appear the cinematic version of the radical student leader, circa 1968, but she is not. Rather, her concerns for young people are mostly practical. She wants French universities to prepare them to find a place in the professional world.
She disdains bottle-throwing on the barricades and prefers private meetings like the one she had this week with Higher Education Minister Valerie Pecresse, who called in a variety of student leaders to urge them not to join protests by transportation workers and civil servants.
In an interview at her office in an edgy neighborhood in northwest Paris, Coudry proudly recalls persuading the main presidential candidates in front of television cameras last spring to support a "third mission" for French universities -- to not only provide education and promote research, but also to prepare students to find employment.
The business world, Coudry argues, disregards university graduates who "don't know about work, who don't know about the economy, who don't know the codes and ethics on the job. We want to change that."
Only the top one-fifth of students make it to the elite colleges; the rest are allowed automatic enrollment at other universities, where they face successively tougher exams. Eventually, 40% drop out.
This summer, the government approved a sweeping law that allows universities more autonomy to manage their budgets, recruit staff, design courses, create partnerships with business and seek additional private funding. It also included Coudry's notion of a third mission.
Although she is not completely satisfied with the new law and does not see herself as a Sarkozy supporter, Coudry also does not support the strikers this time around. Neither does a "silent majority" of university students, she insists.
She was particularly disgusted when militants persisted this week in shutting down a university in Rennes even after a majority of the student body voted against a strike.
"These are little groups talking, acting against the real interests of the majority," Coudry says. "The students we represent don't want to stand in front of metros and stop people from going to work. They want answers about their lives; they want modern universities with better programs and new science labs. . . . Have you seen ours? They're cold and dark and have a lot of people with long beards. What is going to be changed for our future by these blockages?"
