Nope, Paris Isn't Burning (Ignore the Hype).

Plus, will Brad Pitt really star as Jean-Paul Sartre in new biopic?

Dear Subscribers,

Well, it’s come round again: that inevitable news cycle that seems to suggest Paris is coming apart at the seams, if not !!burning to the ground!! amid major workers’ strikes and “social movements”, as they’re called in French.

I have an uncanny gauge for predicting when a hype-fest of this nature is flaring up, even without scanning the headlines or my social media feeds.

Nope, I don’t have a “boule de cristal”. I get a huge spike in traffic to my long, detailed article on safety tips for visitors in Paris— telling me that a critical mass of people are worried enough to be Googling about whether it’s currently safe to set foot in the capital.

The answer, in a word, is yes. Don’t be daunted by semi-hysterical posts claiming that the apocalypse has descended on Paris because garbage bags are piling up on the sidewalks amid waste collectors joining the striking action. (Sure, it can make for unpleasant sights and smells, and admittedly might attract more rats, but it’s not actually end-times stuff).

{From the Paris Unlocked Newsletter archive: Is Paris Really Becoming a “Rubbish Bin”?}

But what’s behind all the strikes, which have reportedly drawn over a million people into the streets across France?

As you may have read (or not), strikers are protesting French President Emmanuel Macron's pension reforms, which are slated to add two years to the official French retirement age (pushing it from 62 to 64) and also do away with a number of special “regimes”/ packages for certain categories of workers, such as electricians, rail workers, and notary publics.

{Wait— 62 to 64? What’s all the fuss about?! Sounds like a great deal to me, even at 64!}