I was taking the opportunity to get my hair cut on my last morning in Southampton having spent two days as a removal labourer moving Adam and Charlotte to their new house.
I'd explained to the barber that I was returning that night from Portsmouth, the "French Strike" was another outbreak of chaos in Calais - the barber's geography skills may not have been as good as his hair cutting ones. The problem is that French labour disputes seem to be targeted at transport links that attract attention in foreign countries, the chaos caused by taxi drivers at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport made second item on the BBC evening news. Over the last eight months the Brittany Ferries route from Caen has suffered a series of wildcat strikes by 12 loaders, each time they walk out a ship gets trapped in Ouistreham and operations have to be moved to Cherbourg.
I was on my way to University when Margaret Thatcher was elected in 1979, along the way there was a terrible amount of collateral damage done to British Industry and social cohesion but the labour reform laws introduced by her government put an end to the damaging effects of "secondary action". Which is why, I think, the British press are still genuinely amazed when French workers strike and inflict maximum chaos on the innocent public - like the effective blockade of Nantes airport recently by taxi drivers. Unfortunately in the mind of many voters this all gets rolled into wasteful EU bureaucracy, the Greek economic plight, illegal immigrants in Calais and the rocky road ahead for the euro - and there's a UK referendum on leaving the EU coming up in less than two years ...
So, off the ferry on a beautiful morning in Saint Malo and straight to fill up with Diesel at 38p a litre less than in the UK to be met with:
Ten tonnes of manure dumped by protesting farmers. They had also dropped straw bales on the ranks of shopping trolleys, a burning tyre on the top of the trolley shelter and another bale of straw on the fuel pumps. I think the current protest is about the price of pork but it could be milk prices, imports from Poland or the withdrawal of land subsidies.
Something similar happened at LIDL in Questembert three weeks ago, although the material dumped on that occasion seemed to be old fence posts, gravel and concrete. - quicker than going to the déchetterie maybe. The odd thing is that the shop is just 150 metres from the Gendarmerie and, according to the Gendarme quoted in a report in Ouest-France, the incident occurred between 11.15 and 11.30 which is very precise. You might have thought that a couple of tractors in the town late in the evening would have made a lot of noise - not particularly quick getaway vehicles from the scene of the crime either!
In 1979 strikes were Known as the "British Disease", after harsh medicine that threatened the life of the patient at more than one point the patient is much calmer now - and the problem has been exported across the channel.
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