Workers Unite!

Protest is the legacy of post-revolutionary France, indeed it's almost a national sport. The French enjoy getting out on the street and blowing a few balloons up - perhaps preferable to blowing each other up.  A national strike against French government plans to raise the retirement age has gained momentum thanks to broader participation by education, energy and transportation workers, as well as high school students.

Flights were cancelled, train and Metro services patchy and there was nowhere to park.  The Eiffel Tower was closed to visitors, as protesters expressed their displeasure with the move to raise the legal retirement age from 60 to 102. In recent times the iconic structure has had to be evacuated on a number of occasions because of the threat of suicide bombers.

It’s comforting to hear therefore that the protests are not confined to elderly mutterings. 

Suicide bombers in France are set to begin a three-day strike set to begin after Friday prayers in a dispute over the number of virgins they are entitled to in the afterlife. Emergency talks with Al Qaeda have so far failed to produce an agreement. The unrest began last Tuesday when Al Qaeda announced that the so-called ‘virgins entitlement’ a suicide bomber would receive after his death, sorry, martyrdom, will be cut by 50%, from 72 to 36, implementation to be immediate. This produced a storm of protest and a number of unknown persons handing in their suicide belts at local police stations. 

The rationale for the cut was the increase in recent years of the number of suicide bombings and a chronic shortage of virgins in the afterlife. The suicide bombers' union, the Blessed Organisation of Occupational Martyrs (or B.O.O.M.) responded with a statement that this was unacceptable to its members and immediately balloted for strike action.

General Secretary Abdullah Amir told the press, "Our members are literally working themselves to death in the cause of Jihad. We don't ask for much in return but to be treated like this adds insult to injury."
Speaking from his shed in in La Goutte D’Or, an underground car park in Paris where he currently resides, Al Qaeda chief executive Osama bum Laden explained, "We sympathise with our workers' concerns but Al Qaeda is not in a position to meet their demands. They are not accepting the realities of modern-day Jihad in a competitive marketplace."
"Thanks to Western depravity, especially in Paris, a known haunt of swingers and others of dubious moral virtue, there is now a chronic shortage of virgins in the afterlife. It's a straight choice between reducing expenditure and laying people off. I don't like cutting wages but I'd hate to have to tell 3000 of my staff that they won't be able to blow themselves up."

The unrest is not confined to Paris. Spokespersons for the union in the Northeast of England, greater Glasgow and the entire Australian continent stated that the strike would not affect their operations as "There are no virgins here anyway".
It seems that the drop in the number of suicide bombings has been put down to the emergence of the Scottish singing star, Susan Boyle - now that potential recruits know what a virgin looks like, they are not so keen on going to paradise.

The debate continues.

with my thanks to an anonymous author who provided inspiration for the above...