*The first weeks
The day after Laura's and my ordeal, our school year started in earnest. We all arrived at U Catho (that's what everyone calls our school - it's full name is the Université Catholique de l'Ouest) on Monday, October 3 to find the main lobby of our building absolutely swarming with students. The first thing we noticed was that there were signs up around the lobby saying all the students' names and which level they were in. Having been in the 8th level during September, I was placed into niveau supérieur. The September program is quite separate from the rest of the year. One can choose to sign up for September, the fall semester, the spring semester, or a combination. My friends and I chuckled at the newcomers, "Poor suckers had to write a placement test the week before while we were on holiday." Those who were starting as débutants to the program in October had to go through the same test that we did on our first day. The mass of students oozed into the ampitheatre. Most of the new ones were scouting out who to sit next to with that stunned first day of school look. We September students flopped ourselves down like the old hats that we were, pretending to be completely at ease with the proceedings. We shouldn't have been so smug. After the same sort of welcome speech we'd had in September, we were kindly informed that "all students who have been placed into the superior level must take a further placement exam to determine which sub-level you will be in." Zut. What's more, we were handed papers that showed our schedules for the next couple of days. What?? We'd heard that we got to choose all our courses.
We wrote our exam, which turned out not to be particularly strenuous, and were then informed that for the coming week we had the opportunity to sit in on every class to help us decide which ones we wanted to take. Génial! I think every university should do that, it was such a good idea. We had to choose 5 or 6 classes to take: one mandatory French class that is divided by level and sub-level, one other French language course, and then following that we could take any combination of language courses or electives. The majority of the classes really interested me, but I finally settled on a combination of classes I thought I needed, and ones I wanted to take: expression orale, compétences écrites, histoire de la France, études socio-culturelles, and langue. Oral expression is supposed to help me improve my conversation abilities, written competences should do the same for my writing skills, and socio-cultural studies is a survey class on how France works (government, education, work system, strikes, etc.)
So far I'm enjoying most of them. Written competence isn't the most fascinating class, but I assume it will be useful. I'm going to take all the fun courses next semester if I can. Socio-cultural is interesting, but the professor is highly disorganised. Right now we're learning about la retraite, or in English, retirement. It's a sore subject in the country at the moment, because President Sarkozy is passing a law that raises the age of retirement from 60 to 62. The French population has collectively taken to the streets to express their immense displeasure with the new law. A few years ago, the manifestations (demonstrations) and grèves (strikes) were so severe for one law that the government actually revoked it. The French seem to be trying for the same outcome now. Every couple of days, students go to their bus stops only to find that the bus drivers are on strike. People go to the airport or train station expecting to leave the city/country, only to be told that the airport workers are on strike, and their planes/trains have been cancelled. Garbage, which is no longer collected, is tossed onto huge mounds all across the country and consequently is strewn everywhere by people who just want to make a fuss. A few times a week, the major streets are commandeered by a merry parade of demonstrators from age 5 to 95. Students, although they are not legally allowed to go on strike, are doing so. Even some middle school students. To the French, the government has given them the right to strike, and many will exercise that right to the best of their abilities. My personal favourite part of the whole fiasco is that the majority of oil refineries in the country have been blocked, leaving the country essentially paralysed. Cars line up at gas stations for hours hoping to get enough gas to last them another few days. Emergency vehicles will soon begin to take over the remaining gas stations that actually have gas so that they can have access to what's left.
I'm not French, and therefore I shouldn't really comment on the issue. But coming from a country where there is no mandatory age limit and it is not unusual for someone to work into their late 60s or even beyond, it seems a little silly to complain about an extra two years of work. In France, a percentage of people's salaries goes into a national account, and then is divided amongst all the retirees. You can open a personal retirement plan on top of that, but every citizen is required to give a certain amount. You cannot receive your pension until you have completed 40.5 years of work, or until you are (now) 62. Because of the demographics of the country, there are not enough working people to adequately support all the baby-boomers who are retiring. Like my language prof said, there are too many complexities to this issue to really understand it, so perhaps I'm out of line with my criticisms, but I would really just like the country to get back to normal. Anyway, enough ranting.
...to be continued
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