France train travel disrupted for the third time, renewed strike against Macron’s plans

Monday, April 9, 2018

The SNFC workers protested against a planned overhaul and the train travel in France will be disrupted for the third time posing a big challenge to President Emmanuel Macron’s reform plans.

The rail workers on Sunday laid down their work to start two-day protest and the French commuters and holidaymakers faced another day of disruptions to train services.

This was against the President Emmanuel Macron’s planned overhaul of the state-run railway company SNFC.

Two-thirds of the trains were cancelled in the regional network while one out of every five high-speed TGV services was still running on Sunday.

During the last strike six out of seven TGV trains and four-fifths of regional trains were affected.

From France to Germany train travel was badly hit and a German railway spokesman stated that eight long-distance trains would have travelled between the two countries on Sunday.

It has been predicted by SNFC that 43 percent of the workers needed for the network will go on strike on Monday.

However, it is seen that the share will be lower than last week when around 48 percent of the workers had walked out during the two day strike.

It is expected that one in five high-speed trains, one in three suburban trains and three out of four international service trains will go as per the schedule today.

Due to the planned overhaul train staff last week had launched three months of nationwide rolling strikes and the unions will be calling for walkouts for two days out of every five until June.

The planned reforms will see ending job-for-life gurantees  and early retirement for rail workers  while the SNFC staff fear that the plans in the end might privatize the company.

Around two-thirds of the French support the government in facing down the strikes .

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