The Partial Strike That Was

Back On the Rails Again

Paris:- Monday, 12. October 1998:- Little did I realize that the minor story in last week's 'Au Bistro' about a little train station stickup would escalate into a fairly serious transport strike in the Paris region by Wednesday.

The bottom line for Metropole is always the question of whether visitors can get from the airports at Roissy and Orly to the city centre and back again. Last week I depended mainly on radio reports as a basis for 'FlashNews' bulletins, which I put online from Wednesday to Saturday.

In the case of - unlikely I hope - a repeat of the early winter near-total strikes in 1995, there always seems to be at least one possible way to get to or from Paris.

The 'Eurostar' trains from London and Brussels immediately come to mind. These have their own crews I think, and so as long as they get switched correctly going into Gare du Nord, they operate during most local strikes.

In contrast to arriving in the centre of Paris, if you arrive at the airports, you are 'out in the country.' While substitute services may be available - buses, taxis - these will be fighting for road space with everything else that would normally be travelling by public transport.

More than once I've heard that the Ile-de-France's public transport system is a wonder; I believe it because I use it too. But the Ile-de-France, with Paris as its centre, is very large and its highway system is not overdeveloped - as everybody immediately notices as soon as the trains stop running.

Outside of Paris, when the trains all stop, we are stuck at home or in traffic jams. Inside of Paris, if all the métros and buses stop, we can walk, ride bikes or put on our rollers. Nobody has to stay home.

For those who followed last week's 'FlashNews' in Metropole, there is none to report today. All the wheels are on the rails and all the wheels are rolling.

This started up in last week's issue and some readers wrote to welcome the [kind of] new feature. Before last week, 'Events' and 'Coming Events' were tacked on to the 'Café' column as sort of a poor relation.

As I wrote here last week, this new feature is being 'invented' as it goes along. It has to cater to the nature of the magazine's readership, reflect what is going on in Paris, and yet be less than 10,000 words long. Far less.

When I last did this sort of thing for a paper magazine, a lot of items were 'rolled-over' month by month. This was okay because the magazine's readership was 'in transit' and it saved a lot of money for typesetting.

For Metropole I pay nothing for typesetting, but I have to consider that there are regular readers, first-time readers, ot those of you who are finding Metropole by using 'keywords' with Search Engines.

The other big consideration that has me sort of stumped is the fact that there are too many events happening in Paris and the Ile-de-France at any given time; except maybe in August. The problem isn't where to begin, but when to say 'enough's enough.' Send any ideas to the usual destination.

'The Tocqueville Connection' this week has comment about the 'PACS,' entitled 'Storm Over Liberal Lifestyles.' My explanation and comment about this is in this week's 'Au Bistro' column. For 'French Style,' there are also features about antiques selling steadily, and Eric Rohmer's 'Autumn Moods,' which is about his latest film.

The word 'francophone' refers to French-speaking rather than France, so in this language sense it is about French as spoken and written in Québec, Africa, Switzerland, Belgium and in France's overseas territories - as well as in France. French, like English, is not the same everywhere.

The Editions Hachette and the AUPELF-UREF have brought out the 'Dictionnaire Francophone' in paper and an abridged version of it is online. This version has 50,000 words and 116,000 definitions, of which 10,000 are purely 'francophone.' No verbs apparently.

The publisher Robert Laffont's 'Quidmonde 99' replaces the out-of-print CD-ROM, 'Quidmonde 97.' This online version of the 199 franc, 2,016 page annual 'Quid' encyclopedia, is a database containing information about 206 states and territories, with 201 maps and more than 1,300 photographs. There are also comparison tables for 231 subjects, and the resulting tables can be printed. If the online version is a little brother of the CD-ROM version; it in turn was a little brother to the book. Facts by the kilo, every year.

Long in test - three years, long in pre-publicity - nearly foreve - Internet access via TV-cable now seems to be a reality in Paris. At first available only in certain arrondissements, the system is expected to expand its coverage rapidly, to cover the city by January 1999.