French Striking Behaviour

Presentation of the project

Why do people often go on strike in France?

Thought this particular behaviour, the project will be an in-depth analysis of this aspect of French culture.

The project will be carried out through independent researches, comparison with another culture, American culture, and using the concepts and tools discussed in the module.

In the first part, I will explain French culture in general.

Then, in a second part, I will describe the phenomena and behaviour of going on strike in France.

Then we will discuss the traditional aspect of striking in France.

We will then analyse the striking behaviour using �theoretical’ concepts and tools.

Finally, in the last part, I will explain how I organised my work and how I carried out my research project, including the methods I used to achieve it.

1/ French culture in general customs and etiquette

A/ French etiquette

France is a Western Europe located country. Its capital is Paris and it has 60 millions inhabitants. The official language is French and is spoken by 88% of the population. The rest of the population speaks dialects which have no legal status.

France is family oriented country. Indeed family values like marriage for instance are very important. Friendship is also important and a friend has the duty to be available and thus imply habitual contacts.

When you meet people, the common greeting is to shake hands. If you are meeting friends you may kiss on each cheek. First name is used only for family and friends.

B/ Business

In Business environment people are formal and polite. Business is done through trust and respect. The way French persons talk or write is often related to their social status, education level, and which part of the country they have been educated. When you do business it is very important to build a network for future alliances and trust. There is a high power distance as you don’t talk to your manager directly; you need to go through hierarchy. You won’t share the same office as somebody higher in the hierarchy than you. Meeting your supervisors in your free time is also very unusual.

C/ Values and society

French are highly individualist people as they are self interest. If they find a better paid job for example they won’t hesitate to leave their company. They are not used to share flats, cars, TV…

However, it is a feminity society with a strong welfare. Everybody on the Left and many people on the Right are very attached to the so-called French "modÐ"Ёle social" (social model) ; for them, it means free or moderately priced in public sectors such as health and education, a higher compensation for unemployed people, a minimum income for all (RMI), etc... It was decisive in the 2005 referendum: millions voted NO to protect the French society against what they considered a threat to the "modÐ"Ёle social" in the European Constitution based on Anglo-Saxon market economy model. French are past-oriented, they don’t like changing. New reforms and globalisation are generally not welcome. People are used to strike often or to demonstrate in the street to keep their situation.

There is also a high uncertainty avoidance as people don’t like temporary jobs and prefer being stable. Jobs in administration are appreciated because it is �safe’ job. State-owned and/or state-run service will not try to maximize profit but to maximize the quantity or the quality of service provided. In France, it is a much esteemed position to be a "fonctionnaire". Still, it is a fact that the quality of "Services Publics" in France is much higher than in the USA (train, urban transit, etc). For the French, the state-owned TV channels "service public" are expected to be better, less vulgar, less devoted only to entertainment and commercials.

2/ Phenomena and behaviour of going on strike in France

If you hear something about вЂ?grÐ"Ёve’ while in France, then prepare yourself to walk, manage without cash dispensers, sit in a queue on a motorway, be stranded in an airport, getting your mail weeks later, or something similar. Strikes and demonstrations are an integrated part of French culture.

Nowadays, there is not a single week without a national (or partially national) company going on strike. When workers are not happy with new negotiations they do not hesitate going on strike as much as they like.

It could be in transports, administration, postal services, and medicine as in electricity or in education.

The right of striking for workers is officially legal and guaranteed by the constitution.

Striking is a collective movement of at least 2 people. The activity of striking is characterised by the total stopping of a professional activity in order to show a disagreement toward new negotiations or to get better working or pay conditions.

In the public sector, employees have to prevent the hierarchy at least 5 working days before the beginning of a new strike. There is no legal timing for a strike; it can be less than one day as many months.

When a worker decides to go on strike, his contract of employment is suspended and he is not getting any salary for each striking day.

A strike means for a particular activity that, on a usual working day, 75% of the work won’t be done. For the national train company SNCF for instance it means 1 out of 4 trains are actually in circulation. The 25% of work achieved on a strike day is called �minimum service’. In certain departments of public sector like transports, workers have the obligation of achieving the minimum service