A Note on Demonstrations

Yes, protests and strikes are a well known part of French culture. We always make fun of the French for the fact that they shut down society over the smallest of grievances, but I have to admit that there is something very admirable about this. I ran into my first large protest two days ago while at a cafe near Montparnasse, a giant affair involving students and professors. It has been decades in the United States since students have banded together to oppose something, and here it apparently happens every other week. From what I could gather this was a protest against the proposed cutting of public research funding, though I am not completely sure (if there is someone reading this who could correct me I would be much obliged). There is no way that we students in the United States would band together and march if something like this happened, at it does nearly every year. The First Amendment gives us the right to peacefully assemble, it was so important that the founders put it along with the right to speak freely and practice any desired religion, yet more and more it is not being used. It makes me wonder when we lost the zeal for the political process that the French seems to have held on to. Where in our histories, especially in modern history, did we deviate so much that the US is full of apathy-- so much that until recently only old people voted-- while France embraces the political process? I am sure that the protests will become and pain-in-the-ass after a while, but as of yet I am still enraptured that the french have the spirit, not to mention the organizational ability, to protest and strike the way that they do.