Rail unions take on Macron with strikes

IN A BID TO BOOST EFFICIENCY, MACRON WANTS TO END RAIL WORKERS’ JOBSFORLIFE, ANNUAL PAY RISES AND EARLY RETIREMENT RIGHTS.

PARIS: French rail workers launched a series of nationwide strikes on Tuesday, threatening months of transport disruption in the sternest challenge yet to President Emmanuel Macron’s efforts to modernise Europe’s second biggest economy.

State-run rail company SNCF, which Macron wants to overhaul, said 48% of the workers needed for the network to run smoothly were absent, as they joined the protests against plans to trim benefits including job guarantees and generous pensions.

Just one in four trains ran in the Paris region, while only one in eight high-speed TGV trains were operating. At Gare du Nord, Paris’s busiest station, platforms were so crowded that some commuters fell onto the tracks. Other stations were plunged into darkness, the lights and ticket machines switched off.

French media dubbed it “Black Tuesday”.

Outside Gare de L’Est, crowds of SNCF workers denounced the government and set off flares that filled the area with smoke.

Many students, who have launched their own demonstrations against education reform, joined the protest, and some workers in other sectors downed tools in sympathy with the rail workers. Others plan to do so in the coming days.

The four main rail unions plan to strike for two days out of every five for the next three months — a total of 36 days of disruption — to fight a shake-up of monopoly SNCF before it is opened to competition in line with European Union rules.