France Crippled by Strikes

You have to hand it to the French on one thing, they sure do know how to mess up their own economy.

Huge new strike paralyses France

Hundreds of thousands of civil servants have joined striking transport and energy workers as France is crippled by a second week of industrial action.

Postal workers, teachers, air traffic controllers and hospital staff are holding a 24-hour stoppage to protest against planned pay and job cuts.

Students are continuing demonstrations over university funding reform plans.

In a word: "Gimme"...

So why are the students upset, you ask?

Students are continuing to disrupt classes in half of the country's 85 universities.

They have been protesting since the start of November over plans to let faculties pursue non-government funding.

I love it. The young minds full of mush are upset that the faculties are looking to get off the public dole.

That's your brain on socialism.

But the key item to this all is the plan to reduce the public pension plan.

The transport workers' strike was triggered by plans to scrap "special" pensions privileges enjoyed by half a million staff.

The French government simply does not hve the money to pay for all the benefits, and no real hope of getting the money in the future.

This is one of the reasons why I remain convinced that the EU will eventually split up, because the economically healthy countries will not be willing to subsidize the unhealthy ones.

More from the Daily Mail.

In a display of intelligence only the French could explain, some commuters hurry to catch their train.

Meanwhile, Parisians do their part to save the planet.