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The Great French Mustache Strike of 1907
- yosefzeev 8y agoBack when people could be organized for a protest...
- mrec 8y agohttps://worldinparis.com/transport-in-france-strike-news-tips-for-traveling-to-paris https://worldinparis.com/transport-in-france-strike-news-tip...
- Legogris 8y agoIt's still in the blood of the French. You don't have to be in Paris for long to encounter mass protests.
- lucozade 8y agoHaving had the pleasure of being served by many waiters in Paris, I assumed that the 1907 strike hadn't ended yet.
- baud147258 8y agoI think you haven't heard about all the latest protests in France? Between the new work code (loi travail), the Notre Dame des Landes airport and the recent transport strike, there are still organized protests here.
- carlob 8y agoThose are not strikes though, just social movements /s (there are two distinct expressions to denote a strike in French, one for when the right is holding power, one for when the left is)
- baud147258 8y agoI've never noticed that. I'll have to check next time the right is in power (if it ever happens again)
- scott_s 8y agoMany military, police and service jobs in the US ban facial hair for men, which has a discriminatory effect: https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/9/28/17916056/workplace-beards-facial-hair-black-men-sikhs-publix-chick-fil-a https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/9/28/17916056/workplace-b...
- gaius 8y agoThe military beard ban is about sealing a gas mask, it does have a real purpose. Having said that, they do let SF grow beards.
- rossdavidh 8y agoThis is an interesting article and all, but I have to say that the picture of a waiter with a tray and a bottle of wine in mid-fall was even more interesting. Probably staged, but still an arresting shot.
- AceJohnny2 8y agoLooks like it was a race. The other waiters seem to be mid-run.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- saghm 8y agoBefore I clicked the link to the article, I thought this comment was referring to the season (i.e. "mid-autumn"), and I was really confused about why this would be so interesting
- pjc50 8y agoThe tremendous Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds has a section on "Influence of Politics and Religion on the Hair and Beard", detailing the various times it's been banned/compulsory/taxed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusions_and_the_Madness_of_Crowds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusion...
- msla 8y agoIt's also public domain and available at Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24518 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24518
- atourgates 8y agoHemingway talks about similar mustache-relates social strife occurring in the 1920s, in _A Movable Feast_, his memoirs of his life as a young man in Paris. The conversation is set at the Cafe Lilas (which is still open today, though mostly as a tourist trap), with Evan Shipman, a fellow American writer and journalist. “He’s in trouble already,” Evan said. “How?” “They’re changing the management,” Evan said. “The new owners want to have a different clientele that will spend some money and they are going to put in an American bar. The waiters are going to be in white jackets, Hem, and they have been ordered to be ready to shave off their mustaches.” “They can’t do that to André and Jean.” “They shouldn’t be able to, but they will.” “Jean has had a mustache all his life. That’s a dragoon’s mustache. He served in a cavalry regiment.” “He’s going to have to cut it off.” I drank the last of the whisky. “Another whisky, Monsieur?” Jean asked. “A whisky, Monsieur Shipman?” His heavy drooping mustache was a part of his thin, kind face, and the bald top of his head glistened under the strands of hair that were slicked across it. “Don’t do it, Jean,” I said. “Don’t take a chance.” “There is no chance,” he said, softly to us. “There is much confusion. Many are leaving. Entendu, Messieurs,” he said aloud. He went into the café and came out carrying the bottle of whisky, two large glasses, two ten-franc gold-rimmed saucers and a seltzer bottle. “No, Jean,” I said. He put the glasses down on the saucers and filled them almost to the brim with whisky and took the remains of the bottle back into the café. Evan and I squirted a little seltzer into the glasses. “It was a good thing Dostoyevsky didn’t know Jean,” Evan said. “He might have died of drink.” “What are we going to do with these?” “Drink them,” Evan said. “It’s a protest. It’s direct action.” On the following Monday when I went to the Lilas to work in the morning, André served me a bovril, which is a cup of beef extract and water. He was short and blond and where his stubby mustache had been, his lip was as bare as a priest’s. He was wearing a white American barman’s coat.