Macron faces a wave of strikes, protests Passengers urged to change travel plans
French rail workers began another two-day rolling strike on Friday which has hit services across the country. But President Emmanuel Macron has vowed he will not back down.
French rail passengers were hit by a sixth day of strikes on Friday, with the national rail operator SNCF urging people to postpone travel plans and to stay away from train stations if possible, AFP reported.
As France approaches the 50th anniversary of the uprising of May 1968, it seems once again to be caught up in a wave of defiant rebellion.
In the western city of Nantes, protesters burned an effigy of the president. On the university campus of Nanterre, riot police had to break up a sit-in, The Economist reported.
Only one in five high-speed TGV trains will run, as well as one in five trains on main lines, with two out of three regional trains operating, including in the Paris region, the SCNF said.
Train traffic will return to normal on Sunday until the next planned strike day on April 18.
These disruptions are the latest of three months of rolling strikes planned by rail workers that began on April 3 over plans to overhaul the heavily indebted train operator SNCF, the biggest test yet to Macron’s wide-ranging drive to reform the country’s economy.
The strikes have caused major travel headaches for the 4.5 million daily rail users in France.
In a television interview on Thursday, Macron who had hardly spoken about the conflict publicly, vowed to stand firm. “I will go to the end of these reforms,” he said. “It is essential we go ahead, not to do so would be a political hypocrisy”.
“I believe, as the unions do, that we need a strong rail service, a strong SNCF, and I respect their struggle,” AFP quoted as Macron telling TF1 television in his first comments on the rolling strikes launched last week.
“But I’m also asking them to fully consider the needs of our fellow citizens who have to put up with this, of the companies that could fail because of this strike,” the president said.
“The right answer is not to abandon this reform, but to carry it out together,” he said.
Rail unions are hoping to take advantage of a growing atmosphere of social discontent against Macron’s reforms, including protests and strikes by civil servants, energy workers and garbage collectors.
Employees at Air France, in which the government holds a minority stake, also went on strike again on Wednesday seeking a six percent pay raise, and students have been blocking several public universities over Macron’s plan to introduce more selective applications.