WILDCAT!

French railways face 100-mn-euro bill over Christmas strike 

Thursday, December 22, 2022  © AFP 2022 

Travellers are furious about the disruption which comes despite a 12-percent pay deal for rail workers. 

France's railways face a 100-million-euro ($106-million) bill over a Christmas rail strike organised by ticket inspectors without union backing which has caused a major backlash from travellers, a minister said on Thursday. 

Transport Minister Clement Beaune called the stoppage over the the coming weekend "incomprehensible and unjustifiable". "It will probably cost the company around a 100 million euros," he told Franceinfo radio. "We don't need that at the moment and we need everyone to start talking again."

 Several hundred thousand travellers have seen their tickets cancelled this weekend, the first Christmas since 2019 without major Covid-19 health concerns. The SNCF has offered to reimburse double the face value of cancelled tickets if travellers are unable to book an alternative. 

"I'm totally fed up. It's becoming a nightmare. You can't take people as hostages like this," pensioner Christian Petit told AFP at a station in Lyon. 

Resolving the dispute -- which has led to the cancellation of two out of five long-distance trains this weekend -- is complicated by the way the strikers have organised themselves.

 The stoppage has been coordinated by an informal collective of train managers on Facebook, rather than via union representatives, and the strikers have made no public statement.

 The SNCF says unions have already negotiated a pay rise of 12 percent over two years for staff, which is in line with inflation and superior to most private-sector settlements. "We've done everything to try to avoid the strike," SNCF boss Jean-Pierre Farandou said on Thursday. More disruption looms over the New Year weekend when unions have informed management of another possible strike. 

"What we expect from the management of the SNCF today is that they find a solution in the next few hours, and I mean in the next few hours," Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire told Sud Radio. 

France Faces Wave of Transport Strikes on Christmas Week-End

Albertina Torsoli, Bloomberg

Commuters wait at Gare de Lyon in Paris during a strike organised by SNCF controllers on Dec 2. Photographer: Stephane De Sakutin/AFP/Getty Images , Photographer: STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/AFP

(Bloomberg) -- France is bracing for another Christmas of travel disruption after the state-owned railway operator SNCF was forced to cancel one in three TGV high-speed trains because of strikes. 

The measures will be put in place on Thursday evening due to a strike notice by on-board client managers, according to the SNCF’s website. Roughly the same situation is expected Dec. 24 and Dec. 25, SNCF said.

No disruption is expected for international travel on Thalys and Eurostar trains during the period, SNCF added, aside from that caused by UK strikes. There are currently no Eurostar trains scheduled for Dec. 26 due to a strike at Britain’s Network Rail, though further walkouts planned for this week were called off Wednesday after staff received an improved offer. 

The walkouts are among many taking place across various industries — especially in the UK — as inflation spirals and cost of living becomes harder to afford. While protests and demands for higher salaries are legitimate, there’s no justification for strikes at such a crucial time, French government spokesman Olivier Veran said in an interview on France Inter Wednesday. 

Families are desperate to reunite after two difficult Covid-19-blighted Christmases, he said. “There should be no strikes but a truce for Christmas,” Veran said. “This is not the time to take the French hostage.”

SNCF has pledged to reimburse double the price of the lost tickets. Veran said he wasn’t yet in a position to estimate what the reimbursements will cost the company.

Air France-KLM’s French carrier also faces possible strikes in the coming two weeks, although the airline has pledged to take all its clients to their destination nonetheless.

(Updates with Eurostar strike cancellation in third paragraph.)