The winter vacance is over and the French are back to the season of strikes and demonstrations. I have seen many of these and I must tell you. You may be right but you are doing it all wrong. 

I just came back from making a story about the retired people in Marseilles I was expecting to see elderly people some even very old in wheel chairs to see people that are really badly threated. However what I actually saw was healthy most of them overweighted people carrying signs of the unions rather than their own problems. i have seen an advertising for the CGT, CDFT and the rest of the unions. The same thing saw all the people I the streets of Marseilles. Lets put it this way: Retired people have no power over companies or over the government. But they have power over the public, and the public has a power over the government. The demonstration was for the right cause done wrong. It shows people well protected by the unions, they were well dressed most of them looks really good, after all French retires very young. This demonstration didn’t show the right pictures and the unions are not aware of the damage they causes the cause in front of the public. You remember the farmer that cried in the TV broadcast less them a week ago he showed what he felt he didn’t show power he showed frustration and misery, when you are frustrated and miserable SHOW it don’t show power. The SNCM are striking because the government is taking their monopoly away (yes monopoly is bad to us the people that live in France) so what do they do ? strike and causes damage to their own company instead of improving the service. Those people that were effected by the strike will run to the competitors. Not really smart. And I have seen Sarkozy taking to the unionist on the TV. Sarkozy said that the government gave up on the professional tax to go toward the investors. But he didn’t ask the unionist "and what did the unions do to go toward the investors ?" because he knew that the result will be strike all over France. Now the workers of Philips are wondering why Philips close down ? it is not profitable for them so they close down, to strike now will be stupid they just prove Philips that they are right to close it. While they should have try to be more flexible. You see strike is a tool but the French use it to shoot their own legs often !