When we flew to France in the summer of 2014, everyone told us that the French like to strike. We were like, there’s no chance of us being affected by a strike while we are there for a measly three days. We had no idea that strikes are practically the national pastime of France.
We flew into Charles de Gaulle airport, rode the train out to Paris and toured the city. We heard there was a possible strike of the taxis and rail service strike scheduled for tomorrow. The hotel suggested we go ahead and pre-schedule a taxi for tomorrow as it may be impossible to hail one on the street. We did so, since we were taking a trip to Normandy the next day. We fell asleep not knowing if we had transportation that would show up.
The next morning we awoke with enough time to walk to the train station. Amazingly, a taxi was waiting for us. As we rode in the car, Tasha was interpreting the news playing on the radio station discussing the taxi strike that was going on. It was all quite humorous as we were currently in a taxi at the time.
We arrived at the Saint-Lazare train station still hoping our train wouldn’t be on strike. We didn’t know if it would be a local Metro strike, a commuter strike, a long distance train strike, or no strike at all. Train tickets are funny things. They tell you where you’re going and where you’re leaving from, but the signs that tell you which train to get on only provide you the endpoint for the train itself and you either have to know or you have to locate the right sign that tells you all the stops that the train makes. Even asking someone is dangerous. We were off to Caen (pronounced like “Conch” without the “ch” sound at the end), but if you don’t speak French and I do not, I would pronounce it like “Can”, which would get you put on a train to Cannes. So be careful out there. Fortunately, we found our correct train and got on it, and most importantly it wasn’t on strike.
All afternoon we toured Normandy and paid our respects to our fallen heroes in the cemeteries above the D-Day beaches. While there was a nagging question on whether or not the train would be running in the afternoon, I hoped we had nothing to fear. Right on time it pulled up, so we hopped on and made our way back to Paris. I think we jumped on the Metro to get back eliminating the need for a taxi to return to our hotel.
Two days later, all was going smoothly until we arrived at the Eiffel Tower. Of all things to go on strike! The attendants 
running the elevators went on strike. So you were left with the option of walking up a billion stairs or admiring it from the ground. We opted for admiration. We had already gone to the top of Montparnasse Tower to get a great view of Paris with the Eiffel Tower in our pictures. While we were below the tower, this lady came up to me to ask me to sign a petition. I’d been warned about this, because after you sign, a bully comes up to demand you pay them a fee for which you just signed. Why don’t these losers go on strike?
The next day, we scheduled a car to pick us up the next morning from the hotel and take us to the airport. Glad we did, because the taxis went on strike, again! Lucky for us, we were in a private car and not a taxi which was somewhat funny, since the strike was to protest Uber coming to Paris. As our flight was in the early morning, we missed the traffic caused by the taxis that blocked all the lanes of the highway to the airport to prevent all traffic heading to or from Charles de Gaulle.
All in all, I’d say we were extremely fortunate on this journey. Uber was coming to the European continent and like in most cities; the taxi drivers hated it and were striking. The only thing that truly affected us was the elevators going up the Eiffel Tower. Guess we will be forced to go back to Paris another time. Oh the torture!
So when they warn you might encounter a strike in France, it might just happen…
