Good news from France!
Angela Doland tells all in French Performers Boycott the Stage:

PARIS - After calling off operas and foiling film festivals, thousands of French performing artists took their strike to the streets Wednesday, puffing into tubas and waving puppets in protest over unemployment benefits.

Be still my heart! Hopefully it includes the damn mimes too.

But what is keeping the artistes from their usual hijinks?

Actors, musicians, filmmakers and theater technicians are worried about changes to a unique French system that protects performers with an unemployment plan that covers their downtime between projects.
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As things stand, performers have to rack up 507 hours of work in a year to qualify for 12 months of unemployment pay. Under the new proposal, they would have to work 507 hours over 10 1/2 months to win benefits for eight months.
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More than 102,000 people qualified for the artists' unemployment system last year, nearly double a decade ago. In 2002, the government's fund for arts workers was at a shortfall of $950 million.

Hmm, it used to be work for about 3 months, get 12 months on the dole. The proposal is that they only get 8 months on the dole. What a shocking imposition on French culture!

Demonstrators said the unemployment benefits gave them time and money to work on new ideas.

Now that's a scary thought!

The Communist-backed CGT union worries that 35 percent fewer artists will be eligible under the new plan.

Hey, the Communists run the performers union. It's just like the USA!