Striking out in Paris

Montreal is looking more and more like the Paris of the North. Not because of the restaurants or the French factor but our student protests and strikes. As much as I complain about the inconvenience here, there's never been a time I travelled to Paris when there wasn't some sort of disruption.  
There's frequently a traffic jam on the way to-or-from the airport because of a manifestation. If you're taking a cab, just make sure you're not on the meter. Better yet, take public transit, unless of course there's a strike. There's always the shuttle. You can catch up on your sleep while it's crawling its way into the city.
Paris is a great city to walk around so a public transit strike or a gas strike is really no big deal.  Just keep telling yourself that.
It is a big deal when the museums are out on strike. Imagine Paris without the Louvre. Or the Musee D'Orsay. Or the Orangerie or the Picasso Museum or the Musee Rodin. Why even bother going to Paris?
But really, the whole city's a museum. Statues abound in every park, on every street corner. There is always some sort of exhibit in the Jardins des Tuilleries and Montmartre is all about street artists.
The best thing to do is simply take it for granted that if there's anything you really really want to do, it will be affected by a strike.
There was the day of the general transportation strike, on the day I was leaving France for another country. I had planned to take a leisurely trip on the Thalys but since the train clerk could only shake her head, I walked over to the Eurolines office and bought a busticket. ( I admit I was wary about the 5AM return pick-up by the side of the road in a small Dutch city and I probably should have gone with that feeling, instead of the bus.) Since the buses and metros were out, I simply gave myself the day to walk from my hotel across Paris, figuring that if I got tired, I could grab a cab on the way. Except they were all out in sympathy. At least I didn't have a heavy bag. And I got to sleep all the way to Holland. 
Paranoid about missing the bus back, I arrived 15 minutes early and waited. And waited and waited. Because it was so early there was no-one to call because no office was open; no place to go for a coffee, no place to go for a pee. So I waited for two hours until the first commuter train and stood all the way to Belgium. By the time I grabbed the next train to Paris, I'd resigned myself to spending the extra 100 Euros, figuring I'd grab a window seat, a cappucino and relax. Wrong. The train was double-booked and it was impossible to move from wherever I sat. Unless I wanted to stand. 
By the time I got back to Paris, I was plenty pissed and when I  discovered the metro service still wasn't up, it gave me the adrenaline to walk all the way back to the hotel.
And I bellyached, plenty, but it never stopped me from going back. Bellyaching is part of the Parisian experience--throw up your hands and people will take you for a native.