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Originally Posted by Thymeclock
BTW, when the SNCF (French National Railroad) goes on strike, virtually the whole nation grinds to a halt, as they are highly dependent upon that one mode of transportation.
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If only public transport services are going on strike, it causes serious inconvenience and more traffic jams, but France or Belgium are not really grinding to a halt.
Personally I avoid public transport like the plague as it's utterly unreliable.
At work we change over to road transport when the railroad unions go on strike again. Trouble is, 2 railroad cars are replaced by 5 trucks.
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(Perhaps our Belgian participant won't mind my pointing out that Belgium might hope to avoid the social and political policies and problems of neighboring France, as well.)
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Oh, it's almost as bad here as it is in France.
We have very similar social and political issues.
Some 40% of the Belgian population actually speak French.
Much of our legislation is still based on Napoleonic origins.
Our railroad company is called SNCB (in French) - not a lot of difference there
Before anyone on your side of the Atlantic thinks Europe is Utopia, 15% of the Belgian population lives in poverty.
Well, at least officially.
There's also a lot of social profiteering going on.
The national debt is 28000 EUR (39400 USD) per capita.