C'est fini!

The strike is over. Transportation is almost back to normal. The weather, though chilly, has decided to cooperate. People are back out shopping with and have descended en masse on Printemps and Galaries LaFayette.

Wednesday seemed to be a pivotal day in the battle between the transportation workers and the rest of us. At work students came in one after another - tired, frazzled, having walked for miles- and completely broke down. They sobbed, they pulled their hair and they called their mothers. Exhausted professors and school administrators lost their tempers and could barely drive their motor scooters out of here fast enough, especially since Montparnasse seemed to have turned into manifestation central. Furious smokers took to the streets in front of school in an chaotic demonstration of their outrage at the possibility of no longer being to light up freely in Parisian cafés. Something had to give...

And happily it did. We got our metro back. Secretly, I believe that this is all due to the indefatigable efforts of one of our cleaning ladies, Chantal, and her ferocious poodle mix. Every morning at 6 a.m. they went to the bus and metro depot near Porte d'Orléans to growl and hurl insults at the grevistes. For the 10 minutes every morning Chantal would let loose a ferocious tirade as a sort of primal therapy that I think we all could have benefited from. And so, just as many Republicans believe that Reagan brought down the Iron Curtain, I believe that had it not been for Chantal we might still be hoofin' it to work.