Archive for February, 2009
February 13th, 2009 | 
Author: It’s that time of year, again; the Nice Carnival. The bleachers are up on the Prom; tour buses are filing into town and locals are bracing themselves for the annual traffic meltdown. Despite the few residents actually attend the Nice Carnival, everyone has an opinion about it. The first opinion is that it’s “trop cher” which means that locals have to actually pay for it. It didn’t used to be that way! It used to be open to everyone! Well, that was before my time but certainly after Garibaldi’s era.
Anyway. You don’t have to pay for it anymore. Now the Nice carnival parade is free every day except the first and last days. Chouette? You do still have to pay for the Bataille des Fleurs but, IMO, it’s well worth it. (See photos of the Nice Carnival (Carnaval, in French).
Here is the program for Nice Carnaval 2009:
Saturday February 14
14h30 Battle of the Flowers
21h – Corso
Sunday February 15
14h30 – Corso
Tuesday, February 17
21h00 – Corso
Wednesday, February 18
14h30 – Battle of the Flowers
Saturday February 21
14h30 – Battle of the Flowers
21h00 – Corso
Sunday February 22
14h30 – Corso
Tuesday, February 24
21h00 – Corso
Wednesday, February 25
14h30 – Battle of the Flowers
Saturday, February 28
14h30 – Battle of the Flowers
21h00 – Corso
Sunday, March 1
14.30 Corso
21.00 Burning of the King and fireworks
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Hooray. Commuters can now try to resume their normal work habits. The SNCF and the unions settled the work stoppage that has been plaguing the region since December. According to the deal (and I hope it wasn’t a capitulation) the SNCF has agreed to hire five additional conductors to relieve the crushing workload on the 35-hour a week strikers. The unions wanted 20 but apparently capitulated. Now the SNCF can get back to “normal” service on the Nice-Monaco and beyond lines which usually means only a day or two of strikes each month.
It’s not a strike. Really it’s not. Because a strike would be illegal. So, workers on the TER regional train network that transport passengers from Nice to Monaco and beyond have hit on a new and legal way to torture their fellow citizens.
Since a strike can only begin on the 60th minute of a non-working hour, train conductors and their SNCF supporters stop work for only 59 minutes. This is enough to disrupt the entire train network in southeast France which is fine by them.
The trouble started when the SNCF proposed to change their train schedules to make them easier for passengers to remember. Even though it would not have increased the length of the workday for train conductors, it would have increased its “density” somehow. And so, the SNCF workers launched their non-strike in early December and have continued to press their demands in spite of the increasing anger of passengers who depend on the trains to do stupid stuff like get back and forth to work in the morning.
The unionized workers won an important court victory yesterday in Marseilles which would seem to insure that this punishing and petulant protest will continue.
See more on transport on the French Riviera.