by Monika Dziamka
Daily Lobo guest columnist
School buildings covered in black graffiti and neon orange stickers shouting "CPE: Non!" were one of the first things I noticed about the University of Savoie, in Chambery, France, my host university for this spring semester.
It was the first day of February, and my new roommate Stefanie was politely giving me a tour.
"What's all that about?" I asked. She shrugged it off - French students just getting angry about some new labor law called the Contrat Premiere Embauche.
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The stickers, signs and graffiti kept coming. During the next few weeks, as I shyly made my way around campus, I would pass big groups of French students standing around tables, selling fresh crepes and handing out information about the proposed law and why everyone should be against it.
Friends and family had advised me before I left not to get caught up in politics overseas, but one day I found myself in the middle of a CPE protest while walking to school. The crowd was perhaps 500, mostly high school and college students. They marched through the streets with ardor - beating drums, sitting on top of each other's shoulders and waving signs, energetically blowing their noisemakers.
I realized then that this movement was growing, and sure enough, the crowds surged into the thousands, then tens of thousands, and they multiplied all across France. When I got the chance, I e-mailed my cousin Marta in Lyon to see how she was doing, and it was then I learned that some schools had been shut down. Marta had barely attended a week of school, just enough time to find her classrooms, when student protesters blocked her university with tape and various debris and classes were canceled.
News spread that University of Savoie's sister campus in Bourget-du-Lac was now closed as well, and rumors flew that we'd be next.
And we were.
Protesting high school students even blocked their high schools. Students too young to even vote would sit on overturned trash cans in front of main entrances, arms crossed, loudspeakers at their lips and anti-CPE slogans written on their faces and bodies.
No one knew how far things would go - already the public transportation systems had stopped and all businesses were closed. The day a national strike was announced was fairly quiet in Chambery, until about 10,000 to 12,000 people took to the streets in front of my apartment building. The air was smoky from all the firecrackers they were setting off, and the sounds of shouting, singing, drums, music and noisemakers thundered through the walls of my room.
After our initial shock, we foreigners actually felt a bit cheerful that classes were canceled. I'd stay in bed in the morning until I'd hear Stefanie returning to our apartment from discovering that, once again, all classes were canceled for the day.
Later, classes were back on schedule, but the professor or half the class hadn't gotten the message. Then classes were canceled in the morning but not in the afternoon or vice versa. Most of this information was passed along by word-of-mouth.
After almost three weeks of this, school became a tedious and complicated affair, more time-consuming than if classes had just been held regularly.
More rumors flew, this time that exams would be pushed into the summer. The reality of credit transfer problems hit hard. Marta was asked to return in the fall to take her exams. Foreign students started bitterly planning protests against the protests and such demonstrations happened, especially in Paris.
Frustration and anxiety increased as solid information from the university decreased, and no one ever really knew what was going on. Everyone - for, against or neutral - waited to see what the French government would do.
On April 10, after first modifying the law on March 30, president Jacques Chirac cracked under pressure and announced the complete abolition of the CPE. Supposedly, this was a great victory for all those who protested, although no one can say what exactly they've gained.
As for the Chambery foreigners, we've gained some peace of mind. School for us is back to a pretty regular schedule. Many courses have had make-up sessions, and while exams have been pushed back a bit, summer vacation is not really threatened - although in big cities, like Lyon, students like Marta may still have to return for exams in the fall.
The scars remain. Graffiti and stickers still cover school walls. Old fliers litter Chambery gutters. My history classroom last week was filled with balloons, posters and other decorations used for a celebratory anti-CPE meeting held just before. Certainly, being in France during all of these protests has been an educational experience in itself. But while I've learned much about French politics, the French spirit of revolution and the power of the French youth, I have discovered one especially surprising thing.
It is possible to look forward to final exams.
