Just in case the heavy snow has not disrupted transport enough in France, there is a strike by airline pilots from today until Thursday. It’s to protest against the government’s plans to impose a minimum service condition on strikes in the air transport sector. Apparently there were 350 such strikes last year, some of them timed over the Christmas holiday to cause maximum disruption. The French government feels that such actions give the country a bad reputation abroad – no kidding? – and damage the tourist industry.
Last week there was a teachers’ strike on Tuesday and a local train strike on Thursday. A minimum service stipulation has already been imposed on the train unions, but employees do have the right to withdraw their labour if one of their colleagues is attacked. This is unfortunately a regular occurence on the line between Nice and Marseille. And a one-in-four train service from Nice to Tende, in the mountains near the Italian border, which only has about four trains a day is not good. This forces passengers who have to travel to take a train to Ventimiglia, one of those actually running, and wait for an Italian train from Genoa or Savona to take them to Tende or one of the other stations on the line.
We are scheduled to fly back to England on Thursday. Nice airport has already had problems because it had no de-icing fluid available, so airlines simply cancelled flights rather than leave their planes in Nice overnight. Now the news is that this pilots’ strike, which was supposed only to hit Air France, is causing delays and disruption to other airlines.
This may explain why a Scot has chosen such a title.
and laid the dining room table.
Boadicea's Chariot 
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