This is the perspective of a group of Breton (French) nationals who are seeing things first hand. The widespread protests against our government's plans to raise the age of retirement from 60 to 62 are part of a wider battle about the future of our society and how much the government spends to support the poor.
Now you are about to go through a little bit of culture shock as we will turn your world upside down.
For years many the only protests that have come to the fore have been angry mobs demanding the government stop spending and get out of their lives, something we have been a party to – we hate bureaucracy!!.
Now, we are faced with angry mobs demanding the exact opposite - an end to government cut backs and a promise that the state will continue to provide for them.
Talk about a change of scene.
Something most other countries could never stomach - or indeed even understand - what has been happening here!! The stench of rotting oranges, old coffee grounds and the occasional soiled nappy, sticks in the nose as you walk through the narrow lanes of the old city of Brest.
And every day that the rubbish collectors remain on strike, the piles of overflowing black bags and cardboard boxes grow ever higher.
Wind your way past them and down to the port and you will see more evidence of these strikes - the oil tankers anchored offshore waiting for port workers to return to their posts.
Then there are the petrol stations - the bright red covers strapped over the pumps which tell you they are "hors service" - out of service.
Out of petrol to be more accurate.
The strike is taking its toll. But what most other countries would also perhaps not understand, is how despite this slap in the collective face, everyday life is not on hold.
Basically, it is to be expected here.
"It's France - it's normal, huh?" one of our suppliers shrugged before heading off back to work.
Another, having found a petrol station with supplies said he had to drive around the city a bit, but it was okay. In fact, for a city that has been deemed the epicentre of French union militancy, there was not at first much evidence of it. Yes, there is the rubbish, and the thought in the back of your mind that you might run out of petrol, but where were the picket lines?
For three glorious hours, some of our people drove along the coast looking for strikers and watching the wind-surfers zip across the sea.
At one junction leading to a fuel storage depot, a sun-tanned gendarme and his swaggering colleagues told them there had been a protest earlier but they had closed it down. Eventually they ended up at a Total refinery, which they knew to have been having problems. Even there - no picket. Just the wind whipping across the massive empty car park out the front and a sign tied across the gates - "plant on strike".
The next day though came word of a shut down at the airport. Strikers had blocked the road to the terminal. This sounded more like it. A proper bit of "argey bargey a la Bretonne" surely? Well, not by the time we had made it there. Within an hour or so, the strikers had forced perhaps 100 or so people to abandon their hire cars a short walk from the terminal, and then cleared off….. Airport in disarray - job done.
Some hours later, speaking to our main train station. A group had plonked themselves on the tracks in front of a TGV bound for Paris. They shouted for a bit, but again soon vanished. Lightning strikes, we guess you could call them.
The big question, of course, is where all this is leading? Is this indeed the big social movement that the unions say it is a movement that in true revolutionary style will end with the overthrow of the court of Sarkozy?
Will we finally get back what the workers want - a government that sees its main purpose as being to look after the citizens? Our sense is the answer is twice, "Non". And indeed, most of us know the world has changed since the days of the all-embracing welfare state. We know the age of austerity inevitably implies an age of personal responsibility. And personal responsibility is something that most other nations have adopted as a way of life.
We are reminded of an exchange visit by an American truck driver - named DuWayne - from Wisconsin. One thousand kilometres (600 miles) into an epic ride across the Europe, he mentioned to our driver the French lorry drivers' proclivity to strike.
"We'd never do that in the USA," DuWayne proudly told him. "We work hard."
And it is true - they do.
One year he spent 352 days on the road, in order to pay the bills.
Our driver told him that the French strike to protect their working conditions, which were far better than anything he had ever known.
DuWayne looked at him, shocked, as if to say, "You mean you have it better than us?"