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France braces for mass rail strikes as Macron's reforms face opposition French rail workers stage 'Black Tuesday' protests against overhaul
(about 1 hour later)
France is braced for the start of three months of rolling rail strikes, the first in a series of walkouts affecting services from energy to refuse collection as Emmanuel Macron’s reform agenda comes up against resistance. French rail workers have launched three months of rolling train strikes in what threatens to become the largest and most chaotic industrial action against Emmanuel Macron’s drive to overhaul state transport and liberalise the economy.
Staff at state rail operator SNCF walked out from 7pm on Monday, kicking off a series of stoppages on two out of every five days, which unions warn will cause major disruption for France’s 4.5 million train passengers. Called “Black Tuesday” in the media, the opening day of train strikes was expected to cause disruption for France’s 4.5 million train passengers as almost half of all train staff and more than 75% of drivers walked out.
The main protests begin on what the press has dubbed “black Tuesday”, with only one high-speed TGV train out of eight likely to operate and one regional train out of five in the strike against a major overhaul of the debt-ridden SNCF. Only one regional train in five and one high-speed TGV train out of eight was running. Commuter lines into Paris were severely affected, and international train services were cut with no trains between France, Switzerland, Italy and Spain and only three out of four trains running on the Eurostar service connecting London.
Three out of four Eurostar trains to London and Brussels will run and the Thalys train to Belgium and the Netherlands will operate almost as normal, but there will be no service to Spain, Italy and Switzerland. Stoppages are planned across France’s rail network for two days out of every five days until 28 June.
Rubbish collectors, some staff in the energy sector and Air France employees are also to strike on Tuesday in the biggest wave of industrial unrest since Macron’s election last May. Unions are protesting against the centrist French president’s plan to push through sweeping changes to France’s vast state rail system.
The rail strikes, set to last until 28 June, are being seen as the biggest challenge yet to the president’s sweeping plans to shake up France and make it more competitive, earning comparisons with Margaret Thatcher’s showdown with the British coal unions in 1984. The rail sector is traditionally one of France’s riskiest political issues – a battleground on which Macron is refusing to budge in order to prove that he can face down strikes and continue with a liberalising overhaul of other sectors.
Unions say the centrist former investment banker intends to “destroy the public railways through pure ideological dogmatism”. The government argues that France’s heavily in-debt, state-run railway company, the SNCF, has to be overhauled to be made more efficient before local and national passenger services open up to competition in coming years under European Union rules.
His changes “will fix neither the debt issue or that of dysfunction in the railway system”, they said in their strike announcement. The government intends to cut rail workers’ special employment rights, so that new hires would not have jobs for life or special retirement provisions. But there are also plans to change the SNCF structure, turning it into a publicly listed company.
Air France, meanwhile, is set to operate 75% of flights on Tuesday as staff seeking a 6% pay rise stage their fourth strike in a month. Unions and politicians on the left fear that this transformation into a publicly listed company – even with the state owning 100% of shares – could eventually lead to the rail operator being privatised.
While not linked to Macron’s reforms, the Air France walkouts add to a febrile mood among unions. The government says the SNCF needs deep reforms as EU countries prepare to open up passenger rail services to competition by 2020, arguing it is 30% more expensive to run a train in France than elsewhere. The government denies it is paving the way for privatisation. “We’re defending the French public service, not just rail workers,” said Emmanuel Grondein, the head of Sud Rail, one of the four unions behind the industrial action.
Unions fear the changes are a first step towards privatising the SNCF – a claim the government denies – and object to plans to strip new hires of a special rail workers’ status guaranteeing jobs for life and early retirement. The Socialist Julien Dray warned of a veiled plan for “rampant privatisation”.
As with his reforms loosening France’s rigid labour code, Macron plans to push through the SNCF overhaul by executive order to avoid lengthy parliamentary debate, a move his critics have blasted as undemocratic. The standoff has become a public relations battle that hits the heart of Macron’s programme for liberalising the economy while facing down street protests.
“We need to rid this country of its strike culture,” Gabriel Attal, spokesman for Macron’s party, La République En Marche, said on Monday.
Unions have bristled at suggestions by the government and Macron that rail workers enjoy unfair privileges with job-for-life guarantees, automatic annual pay rises and a generous early retirement policy. The prime minister had suggested that French people weren’t happy with the rail system so it had to be overhauled. Rail workers argue that they are protecting a state service.
The government insist it is open to dialogue with unions. Ministers hope that such a long and disruptive strike will not be popular among the French public. A little more than half of French people view the strikes as unjustified, according to an Ifop poll published on Sunday. The government is focused on trying to keep public opinion onside.
Any question of overhauling the SNCF has always proved controversial, with the train network grinding to a virtual halt for weeks when trade unions opposed changes to rail staff’s benefits in 1995. Those strikes paralysed France and forced the prime minister, Alain Juppé, to abandon the reforms – a defeat that ultimately prompted Juppé to quit.
Staff at Air France, who are pushing for salary changes, as well as refuse-collectors and some energy workers were also staging separate strikes on Tuesday.
FranceFrance
ProtestProtest
EuropeEurope
Emmanuel MacronEmmanuel Macron
Rail transportRail transport
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