Latest News in Lyon: Riots.

So remember how I was talking about France workers going on strike, and I find it really inconvenient? Well, these strikes have turned violent, and frankly I find it extrememly irresponsible, juvenile and dispresectful to one another. I don't care if that is the point of a social movement or not, IT IS RIDUCULOUS and they need to find another, more respectful way to protest.

French high schoolers have decided that they want to strike against the retirement age as well because it will one day affect them. Well I just think that they don't want to go to school and want an excuse to act immature. Their "strikes" have turned violent. They don't go to school, instead they chant down the streets, use trashcans to block the entrance to their schools and have began to vandalise the city i.e.: smashing car windows and setting cars and streets on fire. This behavior is absolutely unexcusable.

Apart from the vandalism from the highschoolers. In Marseille, the garbage men have quit picking up trash.. So now, for a week or more, the streets of Marseille have been piling up with trash. THAT IS UNSANITARY! And just plain disgusting. Someone is going to have to pick it up someday, so pull up your big boy pants Frenchies AND PICK UP YOUR TRASH!!!

Claudia, my housemate, went to her university today to go to class, but it was blocked off too, just like the high schools. There are people who want to learn and be educated - these people PAY for their education - don't deprive them because of some childish social movement, goodness gracious.

And lastly, my friend Mathéa told me today to not go down town because the riots in the streets are comparable to Baghdad.

Everything that I have spoken of, I have not witnessed with my eye, but I have heard about it from my friends and read it in the newspapers. All I have to say is thank God I have been blessed with an apartment in Villeurbanne. People might choose not to live there because it is not the nicest area aesthetically and it is small, but if it manages to avoid riots like those that are happening in the center, I 'm happy.