Andrew's Blog from Paris (formerly London / Bordeaux / Sheffield): Le Temps des Fonctionnaires

Imagine the following situation if you will. You’re a die-hard PSG* fan (perhaps harder to imagine than I thought) and you are a civil servant. PSG are about to play Olympique Marseille in what is the football match of the season. It is to be played behind closed doors, without any spectators in the ground, in the middle of the afternoon broadcast live on the TV. You have already taken your week of holiday, and have yet to reach the require 35 hours of work for the week, and if that wasn’t enough, you are expecting your new director general to arrive that week so must be on your guard.

But nonetheless you’re desperate to watch the game. So how can you? This is the dilemma facing Claude Guichon in the play entitled ‘Le Temps des Fonctionnaires!’ that I went to see last night at the Theatre du Gymnase* (Paris 10).

After hearing about this in the local press it sounded exactly the sort of play that would interest me, but I was put off by the price of the tickets. However, I came across a website that offers last minute theatre tickets and I have consequently snapped up a ticket, one of the best in the house I might add, with a reduction of a massive 70%. Was very pleased indeed with that!

So how on Earth therefore could you watch the game live? Surely the answer would be ‘you can’t watch it at all’, but never underestimate the power of a civil servant.

Their solution, albeit rather stereotypically French, is to plot a ‘surprise strike’ which would therefore release him from his work duties long enough to watch the match. The reason for their strike: paperclips.

Constructing the argument that more paperclips would improve the efficiency of the service by 2300%, their new social movement rapidly gains ground. The media are mobilised and start holding debates on whether or not paperclips should be used in the world of work. Vast rallies are held and even the Prime Minister and the President get involved. Difficulties arise also from establishing and mobilising this movement in complete secrecy from their new boss, who could arrive at any time.

Simply put, the whole situation gets completely out of hand. The leader of the movement begins to lust for power following all the media attention the strike received and naturally starts to plot a course into politics based on a manifesto evolving from the demand for more paperclips.

On the day of the strike, naturally the day of the match, more than 12 million workers take to the streets – a huge success you could argue. However, that number included the workers on the TV stations so he wouldn’t even get to see his match after all…

This truly was a fantastic spectacle of comedy. The majority of the jokes were improvised and even the actors themselves struggled to keep a straight face. It presented another jovial look into the life of a civil servant and their practices – a notable highlight for me was the frequent telephone conversations in which the civil servants devised ingenious new ways to be unhelpful and not to tackle that person’s dossier, demanding documents, family photos, birth certificate of their family pet etc…

It was an excellent show and was staged in a really beautiful theatre. I was sat in one of the best seats in the house and paid a lot less than the person next to me, which is always nice! Thoroughly enjoyed the experience so will be searching that website for another cheap seat again soon!