Alka Kothari

March 25, 2009

In a world brimming with gloom and economic doom, it’s refreshing to find an unexpected laugh.  Mine came in the form of mussels and French fries.  No, not my evening meal, but rather the dinner served to Luc Rousselet, director of 3M’s operations in France. Not laughing yet? Sorry, I failed to mention that his dinner had to be delivered, since his employees are presently still holding him hostage in his office at a 3M plant in Pithiviers, France.

Hostage, boss, anger, mussels – which one of those words doesn’t fit? Your mind, if it’s an American-trained one, is probably busy with all sorts of Taxi Driver meets Bill Gates style images. Where is the SWAT team?  Are the employees armed or mentally unstable? Is there a You Tube video about to be released?

French workers have often inspired a secret envy in the rest of the world because of their fearlessness in the face of their governments.

Apparently nothing nearly so dramatic. On Tuesday evening, Mr. Rousselet gave word to the Associated Press that he was fine, all was calm, and that the employees were taking shifts guarding the door to his office. Oh, and passing him a take out menu.

Which begs the question, have the 3M employees fried their French brains as well?  How do they do it?  Sure, they have a blasé air when philandering and taking paramours that makes Puritanical, but no less adulterous, Americans blush. But taking your boss hostage as leverage? That’s a bolder move than even Pepe le Pew would dare.  The employees have made it clear that they are ‘detaining’ Mr. Rousselet to use as a human bargaining chip in their negotiations regarding severance packages. Over 100 of them are being laid off.

Maybe they are hoping for some sort of northern European result.  A Stockholm-syndrome that results in the managers of French companies willingly donating their bonuses to charity and falling in love with their employee captors. Even so, shouldn’t there be a sniper or two trying to get Mr. Rousselet out of the building?

Not so in France. French workers have often inspired a secret envy in the rest of the world because of their fearlessness in the face of their government. Their revolution was blood and guts and guillotines. Their national anthem sings of gathering in battalions and “marching so that impure blood can water the furrows of their fields.”  Yesterday’s interpretation of the anthem involved marching up the Champs-Elysee to the presidential palace and burning tires, announcing with an offending fragrance that President Sarkozy has been put on notice. He must tread very carefully over these wheels on fire if he is to avoid widespread violence. Republicans take note; this is what real socialism looks like.

So Mr. Rousselet stays in captivity another day. While he enjoys his mussels and pommes frites, in the lunchroom I imagine his captors are eating their cake.

(Update – Mr. Rousselet was released the following morning.)