A meeting of the four main rail unions ended in an agreement for a series of rolling strikes from April 3, intended to affect two out of every five days over a three-month period. The move is calculated to cause maximum and widespread travel chaos.
Unions are demanding that the government drop reforms being pushed through to update the old fashioned and debt-ridden French national state-owned railway company SNCF.
A previous attempt at reform in 1995 provoked such paralysing strikes that the government was obliged to climb down. These strikes could be one of the greatest challenges to Macron’s reform agenda since he became president.
Expect rail chaos, leading of course to problems with other public transport, as thousands of ‘cheminots’ (French rail workers) start to strike for two out of every five days until the end of June, a total of 36 days. .
