I woke up (late) Thursday morning expecting a few hours of group trampoline. Normally the kitchen is pretty empty by the time I get there in the morning but on this sunny Thursday, it was packed.
"There's no trampoline today," is the response received by my quizzical look, "we're all going to Besancon to march in a protest."
Ah.
A protest against what? No one answers me. Everyone is too excited and frustrated to pay attention to the Canadian. But this march does concern me. Its about wages and job security and directly affects this foreigner.
Now, you have to understand, this is a big screaming deal. We're in the middle of creating a show. We've reached the half way point of creation. We've had meetings trying to figure out if we are in fact going to take a day off at Easter. Same goes for the French Labour day. And yet, at the drop of a hat, we're cutting rehearsal so we can go picket.
You know that art scandal that happened with the EU not too long ago? They were really quite on the mark for France...
Anyway... I have been to a couple of protests in my time. But it must be said that we Canadians are generally pretty timid when it comes to that kind of thing. And we've certainly got nothing on France.
I could go into great detail but I think the entire thing can be summed up by this point: At one point during the march, they were actually blasting music from Les Misérables on loud speakers.
I'm just going to give you a moment to let that sink in...
Les Misé-freakin-rables.
Yeah.
And yet, no matter how intense that may seem to me (that and people handing out song lyrics to their protest songs so everyone can sing together), I admit that I admire the French for their cantankerousness. At least they get things done.
Video footage of the protest can be found here.
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