Travel troubles

Getting to and moving around France could prove to be a bit of a problem once again. Last November, train drivers brought the country to a virtual standstill for just over a week as they came out on strike against government plans to reform pensions.

This week though it has been the turn of taxi drivers and the national airline, Air France, to turn the daily commute for many into a not too magical, misery mystery tour.

On Wednesday thousands of cab drivers blocked major arteries in many cities across France in protest over a government-commissioned report proposing to deregulate the granting of licences.

The biggest demonstration was in Paris, where there is a particular problem with not just the number but also the availability of taxis at certain times of the day. The situation is especially critical during the early morning rush hour – as anyone who has tried to hail a taxi can readily testify.

It’s at exactly that time that most cabs are headed out to one of the capital’s two airports, Orly or Roissy. But from 10 o’clock onwards many drivers are back at the ranks, sitting around twiddling their thumbs and waiting for business.

At the moment there are just 16,000 licensed taxis in Paris and its suburbs, far fewer than there were way back in 1920 when there were 25,000.

The report’s proposals currently under consideration are to liberalise the market by allowing anyone who registers with the local authorities to be granted a licence to carry passengers. Such a move would increase the number in circulation in Paris and its environs to around 50,000. In effect it would introduce a system of minicabs, which at the moment doesn’t exist.

But the taxi federation maintains the changes would in fact guarantee that many drivers, already struggling to make a living, would simply go bust.

Average earnings are around €7,60 an hour according to the president of the federation, Alain Estival, and cabbies are forced to work between 50 and 60 hours a week to secure a reasonable take-home pay and cover the costs of having acquired a licence in the first place - €200,000.

If the number of taxis were increased to the extent planned – it would simply mean a lot of qualified drivers would no longer be able to make a living.

The report also includes a suggestion that the Mayor of Paris buy back those licences already granted, thereby creating a truly level playing field. But that would cost a small fortune and the money just isn’t available, not even if the state were to chip in.

The government has promised that any eventual reforms, including the idea of a lane reserved solely for taxis on the motorways leading from Paris to the two airports, are just at the proposal stage at the moment. Any changes would only happen after a period of consultation with the taxi drivers’ federation. Ominously though, another day of blockades is threatened for next week.

And equally portentous perhaps was the way newspapers announced the strike at Air France on Thursday as being the company’s first of the year. By implication more can be expected.

Unions called for action to put pressure on the management ahead of a planned round of salary negotiations due to start next week.

They’re calling for pay rises bigger than the 2.3 per cent increase currently on the table and another look at the way cabin crew are remunerated for unsociable working hours.

Air France took some preventative measures in advance of the strike by cancelling 10 per cent of flights out of Orly – the airport deals mainly with domestic traffic – and booking passengers on to alternative flights. Its European and long haul routes from Roissy were unaffected.

But staff at the airline have a reputation for striking when it’s guaranteed to cause the maximum disruption. And unless management can bring something else to the negotiating table, the upcoming school holidays at the end of February, could prove to be yet another travelling nightmare for those trying to take to the skies.

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Presidential pickings

“Chapeau” as they say over here, to France’s Socialist party. It has managed to put aside its internal spats for a moment and splash out a mere €10,000 on……a hat.

But it’s not just any old hat. It is in fact the symbol of a recent past when the party was still a credible political force and comfortably installed in both the country’s presidential and prime-ministerial offices.

It belonged to none other than the former president, François Mitterrand, and was one of the top bid items at Tuesday’s auction of his personal effects.

More than 300 people crowded into the Salle de Tajan in Paris to bid on the 368 items put up for sale by Mitterrand’s widow, Danielle.

The motley bunch included many party activists hungry for a bit of Socialist memorabilia and nostalgic for a bygone era. There were also the simply curious wondering what treasures Mitterrand had squirreled away during the years when he was France’s longest-serving president from 1981-1995.

Then there were of course the bargain hunters ready to make a killing on quality clothes, and antiques dealers looking for good deals which they could then pass on at marked up prices.

And there was basically something for everyone; shed loads of suits, apparently typically Mitterrand clothing paraphernalia and the usual books, pictures and furniture that might have been expected.

All going under the hammer for a good cause and, in the process, raising the princely sum of €150,000 for Danielle Mitterrand’s human rights charity, France-Libertés.

As well as THE hat – a recognisable emblem to many, of the Mitterrand years, and for which the party was prepared to pay 100 times the estimated price - another top seller was an ermine-lined barrister’s robe, a mere snip at €8,000 – kept in the profession so-to-speak by a lawyer.

Then was yet another hat – a chapka – which made actor/director, Alain Chabat “crack” and for which along with a box of personalised cigars, he was willing to cough up €5,000.

While Chabat was undoubtedly expressing the sentiment of many present that he was bidding because the Mitterrand years had been an important period of French history and he wanted his own little keepsake from that era, the motives of some others were far more questionable.

One young party member for example bought more than 30 suits so he could dress up his collection of wooden dummies – perhaps at some point to display them as a work of art, who knows?

Two more suits were scooped up by the municipal museum of the northwestern town of La Hay, which plans to show them at its “Ideal Man” exhibition at the end of July.
Then there was the woman who took home armfuls of hats, scarves and shoes, which she said she would pass on to Socialist-voting friends as future presents. With friends like that!

And isn’t there just something a little strange about shelling out €1,000 for a pair of slippers – even if they are Church’s. Maybe someone has pretensions of parading around the house with presidential footsteps.

Every time the hammer went down on yet another symbol of the Mitterrand years there was a polite round of applause, much to the consternation of some for whom the auction lacked the appropriate solemnity.

Next up presumably, will be Jacques Chirac, but for the moment he’s alive and kicking so it could be a few years yet. And then there is of course the “bling bling” presidency of the current incumbent, Nicolas Sarkozy, which promises to throw up some gorgeous jewels – in say….30 or 40 years time.

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Rough justice?

There’s many a story that makes the headlines that leaves just about everyone following it wondering what on earth it’s all about and certainly raising questions about the justice involved.

And such a case has to be the “child trafficking” story and the exploits of the French non-governmental organisation, L'Arche de Zoé (Zoé’s Ark).

It all began last October when authorities in the former French African colony of Chad detained 17 Europeans whom they accused of trying to kidnap 103 children and fly them out of the country. The 17 included six members of L’Arche de Zoé,

When the news first broke the immediate assumption made by much of the French media was that there had been a police swoop on a paedophilia ring. But as the story unfolded and the facts became clearer, it transpired that nothing could have been further from the truth.

The charity claimed the children were all orphans from the Darfur region of Sudan and it had organised host families for them in France to help them escape possible death in a region where more than 200,000 people have already died during a four-year conflict, and millions more have been displaced.

But investigations by local United Nations officials revealed that very few of the children were in fact orphans and most of them came from Chadian villages along the border with Sudan.

And the French foreign ministry also cast doubt on the charity’s insistence that its intentions were purely humanitarian and that it had conducted investigations over several weeks to be certain the children were orphans. The French human rights minister, Rama Yade, even went as far as to say that L’Arche de Zoé had been warned months before that it risked breaking international law.

Chad’s president, Idriss Déby was quick to raise the temperature and flex more than a little muscle, letting fly with accusations of paedophilia and organ harvesting against L’Arche de Zoé, and promising punishment for those involved in what he denounced as “straightforward kidnapping.”

The whole muddled affair threatened to escalate into a major diplomatic nightmare for the French at a time when their president, Nicolas Sarkozy, was trying to push hard for the European Union to deploy a peacekeeping force in Chad and the neighbouring Central African Republic.

So Sarkozy to the rescue with a (quite literally) flying visit to the Chadian capital, N'Djamena, to meet Déby and negotiate the release of seven of the accused – three French journalists and four Spanish flight attendants.

Several days later those negotiations bore more fruit when the three remaining Spanish flight crew and the Belgian pilot were also released, just leaving the six French members of L’Arche de Zoé to face the justice of the Chadian courts.

And what justice! After a trial lasting just four days they were found guilty and each sentenced to eight years of hard labour.

Under a long-standing offenders agreement between Chad and France they were allowed to return home earlier this month, where it had been hoped by their defence lawyers that the French authorities might show some leniency.

But that was in short supply on Monday as a court in Paris upheld the ruling, simply converting the sentences to eight years imprisonment under French law

In essence the members of L’Arche de Zoé were probably only trying to do what they felt was best for children they thought needed their help, in a region where the international community and established, more recognised aid and humanitarian organisations have been struggling to make an impact.

The charity’s sense of urgency and undoubted naivety perhaps only served to compound the feeling in Chad that it was in fact violating an African country’s sovereignty and traditions in spite of the obvious paralysis so far of international diplomacy. Its members operated outside the rules of what was considered to be “proper”.

Rightly or wrongly, the six will now pay the price for “breaking the rules” for the next eight years.

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