French rail strike to continue Thursday as parliament debates reform

As the number of strikers on French railways fell on Wednesday, a union leader hinted that amendments to the government’s rail reform project being discussed in parliament could satisfy railworkers’ demands. But unions announced that the action would continue on Thursday.

Not moving - a high-speed TGV train in station Reuters/Christian Hartmann

The proportion out of the workforce on strike fell 2.2 points to 11.8 per cent, according to the SNCF rail company, although unions have accused management of downplaying the number and a high number of drivers taking part increases disruption to services.

Parliament started discussing the rail reform bill on Tuesday with Prime Minister Manuel Valls declaring that the government was “firm and determined” and Transport Minister Frédéric Cuvillier saying it was essential to save the debt-laden state-owned service.

But Thierry Lepaon, the secretary-general of the largest union, the CGT, on Wednesday said that some of the amendments tabled to the bill could answer many of the strikers’ concerns.

“Thanks to our action, amendments have been tabled and it would seem now that the government is taking account of the balance of forces that has been established,” he told France Inter radio.

Forecast traffic for Wednesday was:

• Six trains out of 10 mainline trains and half of intercity trains;
• Two out of three TGVs between the north and the Atlantic coast, four out of 10 on the south-east axis, four out of 10 between provinces, seven out of 10 in the east;
• Eurostar and Thalys trains to Germany running normally, six out of 10 Lyria, two out of three to Italy and one out of three in Spain.

Unions accuse the government of lying when it claims to be unifying the SNCF with the RFF, which is responsible for track, because the two will continue to be separate sub-groups under a single umbrella company.

They believe that the acceptance of a European Union demand that the network to competition will lead to privatisation and that the renegotiation of the railworkers’ collective agreement will mean a decline in working conditions.