Tens of thousands of British holidaymakers face disruption over the next four days due to the latest round of strikes by transport workers. French rail staff are due to walk out for their next 48-hour stoppage on Thursday and Friday. During recent strikes as many as 80 per cent of TGV high-speed trains have run, but on conventional inter-city routes and some suburban lines most services have been cancelled. Eurostar has cancelled a pair of morning rush-hour trains between London and Paris on Thursday and four trains on Friday. Passengers can switch to alternative services or claim a full refund. The strikes are set to continue every five days until 28 June, but could be extended over the peak holiday months of July and August. In Italy, rail staff working for Trenitalia - the national operator - and its private rival, Italo, will strike from 10pm on Thursday to 6am on Sunday. Local transport in Rome, Turin and Verona will be disrupted by a 24-hour strike on Friday. workers in Milan and Naples may also take action. Airline passengers between the UK and Europe face serious disruption on Friday, Saturday and Sundays because of strikes by aviation staff. On Friday, Italian air-traffic controllers will join a day of industrial action by public servants. The controllers will stop work between 1pm and 5pm, which is likely to ground dozens of flights at the busiest time of the week. A similar strike a month ago grounded more than 100 UK-Italy flights. On Saturday and Sunday, controllers in the Marseilles Area Control Centre will stage another walk-out. The centre covers the southeast quarter of France, the island of Corsica and a large tranche of Mediterranean airspace extending as far south as the southern tip of Sardinia. The bitter pay dispute between Air France management and its pilots, cabin crew and ground staff is continuing. The previous boss, Jean-Marc Janaillac, resigned after workers rejected a pay deal. His successor, Anne-Marie Couderc, has taken over temporarily as president until September. In the UK, passengers on the troubled Northern Rail franchise face three more 24-hour strikes on 19, 21 and 23 June. The train operator has brought in an emergency timetable after the botched introduction of new schedules last month. The RMT general secretary, Mick Cash said: “We have seen over the past fortnight that Northern is a company which has declared war on its passengers and staff alike. 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The celebration marks the end of the Muslim month of fasting, called Ramadan.<doc-sep>Hundreds of flights have been cancelled as French air-traffic controllers join a national strike by public sector workers in France. The USAC-CGT union said its members would strike from Monday evening to Wednesday morning “for the defence of public service,” adding: “We must resist the erosion of human rights.” Recommended Rail chaos on first working day of huge train timetable changes French air-traffic control (ATC) handles more flights than any other country in Europe, due to the size of the country and the fact that many aircraft traverse its territory between northern Europe, the Mediterranean and the Iberian peninsula. A “Notice to Airmen” issued by the DGAC, the French aviation authority, said: “ATC capacity will be determined according to available staff.” Airlines serving Paris Orly, Lyon and Marseille airports have already been told to cut one in five flights. Ryanair, the biggest budget airline in Europe, made dozens of cancellations on Sunday evening once it became clear that the strike was going ahead. The airline said: “Due to yet another French ATC strike, Ryanair regrets to inform customers that it has been forced to cancel a number of flights on Tuesday 22 May. “All affected customers have been contacted by email and text message and advised of their options: a full refund, rebooking on to the next available flight or free transfer to an alternative flight. ”Due to this unjustified ATC strike action, we also expect delays to flights to/from/over France and we advise customers due to travel on Tuesday to check the status of their flight on the Ryanair.com website.” Under European passengers’ rights rules, passengers are entitled to meals and accommodation until they can be flown to their destination — which may be on another airline if Ryanair has no availability on the day of travel or the following day. No cash compensation is payable. British Airways has cancelled at least 36 flights on Tuesday, connecting London with France, Spain, Switzerland and Italy. Barcelona is worst affected, with three round-trips from Heathrow cancelled. Two return journeys to each of Madrid, Marseille, Paris CDG and Geneva have been cancelled. The airline said: “We are unfortunately expecting a day of industrial action by air traffic controllers, as part of wider general strike in France on Tuesday 22 May. “We will be using larger aircraft, where possible, to help affected customers and are doing all we can to reduce the levels of disruption. “We recognise that you may not wish to travel as a result. We have therefore introduced a more flexible rebooking policy to help customers travel on alternative dates and avoid the strike action.” Anyone who bought a BA ticket before 18 May to or from any French airport as well as Barcelona and Madrid on a British Airways-operated flight on Tuesday 22 May can switch to Monday, Wednesday or Thursday, “regardless of whether their flight is operating or not”. Air France is also allowing passengers booked on Tuesday to travel instead on any day up to Friday. The French carrier has suffered months of disruption in a pay dispute with pilots, ground staff and cabin crew. Sixty per cent of all easyJet flights traverse French airspace. The airline said: “We expect that there will be delays and cancellations due to the industrial action, therefore we advise all customers to check the status of their flight. “Please also be aware that public transport services will be affected by the strike. We recommend all customers allow plenty of extra time to get to the airport and consider alternative transport options where possible.” On Wednesday and Thursday, French rail workers will be continuing their series of two-day strikes in a dispute over modernisation plans and opening the nation’s railways to competition.<doc-sep>Bertrand Langlois, AFP | The standoff between Emmanuel Macron and French railworkers has been likened to Margaret Thatcher's showdown with British miners in the 1980s. French lawmakers on Thursday gave final approval to a controversial reform of indebted state rail operator SNCF, handing President Emmanuel Macron a key victory in his battle with trade unions. Advertising Read more The vote in the Senate is a blow to the labour movement, which called three months of rolling strikes over the bill, the longest industrial action on French railways in over 30 years. The bill also cleared the lower house of parliament in an earlier vote on Wednesday. Analysts have compared the standoff between the centrist Macron and French railworkers with Margaret Thatcher's showdown with British miners in the 1980s. It is being closely watched as a sign of Macron's ability to face down France's unions, which have had success in pressuring previous governments to withdraw, or significantly water down, unpopular reforms. Train drivers particularly had resisted plans to deny job and pension guarantees to new rail recruits, as well as plans to turn the SNCF into a joint-stock company, which they see as a first step toward privatisation. The government argues the loss-making SNCF -- a bastion of the union movement -- needs to cut costs and improve flexibility before the EU passenger rail market opens up to competition. A poll showed voters largely on board with the changes, unswayed by 30 days of strikes since early April that have caused headaches for millions of travellers on two days out of every five. The SNCF has estimated the cost of the walkouts at 400 million euros ($470 million). Labour leaders have refused to concede victory, announcing that the strikes would continue as planned until June 28. "This strike is far from over," Philippe Martinez of the hardline CGT, France's biggest public sector union, said. SNCF But the movement has been showing signs of fatigue, with the number of strikers steadily tapering off in recent weeks. An estimated 12.78 percent of workers walked off the job on Wednesday, down from around 34 percent in April. Union leaders can claim to have won several concessions, including job guarantees for existing staff if they take a position with a new operator arriving in France. The government has also pledged to take on 35 billion euros of SNCF debt and to not sell off the newly created SNCF shares. Having refused to back down on the key elements of his plan, Macron may have cleared his path for equally tricky reforms to France's strained pension system and vast public sector. "For Emmanuel Macron and (Prime Minister) Édouard Philippe, this political victory against a fortress long deemed unassailable [the SNCF] changes everything," the rightwing Figaro newspaper wrote in an editorial Monday. The 40-year-old president has eased labour protections since taking office a year ago. He has also scrapped a wealth tax, saying the move was needed to spur growth, earning the moniker “president of the rich”. (FRANCE 24 with AFP) Daily newsletterReceive essential international news every morning Subscribe<doc-sep>PARIS (Reuters) - In early April, thousands of French rail workers filled a square outside one of Paris’s largest stations at the start of a strike against President Emmanuel Macron’s reforms. FILE PHOTO: French state-owned railway company SNCF workers and CGT labour union members demonstrate in Paris as part of a nationwide strike in France, April 9, 2018. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo Letting off smoke flares and blowing whistles, they chanted slogans against the president’s plans to shake up the heavily subsidized and indebted state-run SNCF rail company. More than two months later, on day 27 of a rolling strike meant to cripple rail traffic on 36 days over three months, not a single striker could be seen when Reuters went to the same square in front of the Gare de l’Est. The strike is still going on: about half of all national and regional rail services were again halted for two days last week. Gare de l’Est was so empty that birdsong could be heard in the main concourse. For graphic on French rail workers on strike click here But Macron, who said from the beginning that he would not back down, has all but won the war over the SNCF, delivering a powerful blow in his campaign to modernize France’s labor force and end a long economic malaise. Public support for the strike has fallen, according to opinion polls, and nearly two-thirds of the public back Macron’s proposals to remove some of the SNCF employees’ benefits and cut the company’s debt, a poll by research group Elabe showed. Commuters have found ways around the strike, using car-sharing apps, working from home or cycling to work when stoppages hit for two days every five. Fewer train drivers, signal workers and conductors are now taking part in the strike. Macron’s party’s strong majority in parliament means he is well placed to win the National Assembly’s backing for a law enacting the reforms of the SNCF in a vote set for Wednesday. On Monday, a committee from the National Assembly and the upper house Senate jointly agreed amendments to the text of the law, making passage of it all but certain. Signaling his team’s confidence over the reform program, Macron’s chief of staff, Alexis Kohler, told Reuters in a recent briefing: “It’s started like a sprint but will soon turn into a marathon ... We’re working on the basis that we’ll have the capacity to reform.” Slideshow ( 2 images ) Macron, a 40-year-old former investment banker who has been accused of arrogance, has made clear he will not let strikes derail his ambitions. He told TF1 television in April: “Public opinion is not an objective in itself, sorry to be so blunt.” MORE BATTLES AHEAD It’s a far cry from 1995, when a conservative government led by Prime Minister Alain Juppe squared off against the unions over plans to reform the welfare state. After nearly four weeks of strikes that paralyzed the nation, Juppe dropped the plans. Back then, the railway workers led the resistance with a strike that swelled into broader public sector unrest. This time, they have not inspired the same solidarity. The left-wing opposition, led by Jean-Luc Melenchon, has tried to persuade students and disgruntled civil servants to strike in solidarity with the SNCF workers. He had some success widening the protest movement early on in the strike, but it has not been sustained and Melenchon has fallen quiet. On the right, the opposition Republicains largely agree with Macron’s effort to overhaul the SNCF. The far-right National Front is firmly behind the rail workers, but that stance has not helped the party land blows on Macron. While French union membership has stayed steady at around 8 percent of the workforce since the mid-1990s, the unions’ clout has declined and the main ones are no longer aligned in their positions. The biggest union is now the most moderate. Since taking office in May last year, Macron has exploited those differences, building ties with those prepared to negotiate. Overhauling France’s labor rules last year that make it simpler to hire and fire, he won the support early on of the CFDT, the largest and least ideologically rigid of the unions. The battle with the 150,000-strong SNCF employees has, if anything, been tougher. Macron’s proposals involve the biggest shake-up of the railways since they were nationalized in the 1930s. Many had written the SNCF off as unreformable. But Macron managed to get across the message that the world has changed and that the SNCF’s decades-old, jobs-for-life protections cannot go on forever. He has also pointed out that rail liberalization is obligatory under European Union rules, with France behind other member states in meeting requirements. Macron wants the SNCF to make a profit but says the reforms are not about preparing the company for privatization. That reassurance has gone down well with the CFDT, as did an offer to write off 35 billion euros of the SNCF’s 47 billion euros of debt if the unions sign up to the changes. “The trade unions’ lack of effectiveness is partly due to their fragmentation,” Laurent Berger, the head of the CFDT, told the union’s congress on Friday. “We must show much more clearly that French unions have changed and that there is a reformist stream.” Macron’s planned reforms would change the SNCF into a joint-stock company, phase out its monopoly on passenger traffic and mean that future employees will not receive all the benefits that are enjoyed now. The CFDT has shown no sign that it will extend the strike after the scheduled end of the stoppages on June 28. The more militant CGT is expected to reject the law after it is approved by parliament and has said it will launch wild-cat strikes. But Macron, who will turn his attention next to reforming social benefits and pensions -- a potentially much tougher battle -- has made clear he will not be deterred.<doc-sep>
Christophe Simon, AFP | A SNCF employee at the Saint-Lazare railway station in Paris, on the second day of a two-day rail strike on April 19, 2018 France’s SNCF national rail service relaunched rolling strikes for Sunday and Monday, two days after the government offered to forgive most of the company’s debt if it accepts reforms to make it more competitive. Advertising Read more For real-time updates on the national rail service, please visit the SNCF’s website here. For the latest updates on the Paris metro, please check the RATP’s website here. It is the 13th series of two-day rolling strikes launched by SNCF since early April, wreaking havoc on rail travel across France. Two out of three high-speed TGV trains were running on Sunday, while one in two regional TER trains were operating. SNCF’s regular network, Intercités, was the hardest hit by the strike, with only two out of five trains in circulation. Traffic in the Paris area was also disrupted, with an average of one out of two commuter trains running. The RER A and the southern route of the RER B, however, were operating as normal, as was the Paris metro. The industrial action has been unpopular among the French, with 56 percent saying they oppose the strike, and 64 percent saying they don’t want the government to give into railway workers’ demands, according to the latest Ifop poll published in the Journal du Dimanche newspaper on Sunday. On Friday, the government sought to end the strike by saying it would forgive most of SNCF’s debt if plans to make the operator more cost-effective were implemented. It remains to be seen whether unions will accept Prime Minister Édouard Philippe’s proposal. A vote is expected in the coming weeks. If the offer is rejected and the strike continues, it will underscore the deep resentment that persists among more left-wing unions against President Emmanuel Macron’s ambitious agenda. SNCF The 40-year-old president has eased labour protections since taking office a year ago. He has also scrapped a wealth tax, saying the move was needed to spur growth, earning the moniker “president of the rich”. Laying out the government’s offer, Philippe said on Friday the state would absorb €35 billion of the SNCF’s total €47 billion ($55 billion) debt, which is mostly generated by investment in the much-admired TGV high-speed train network. “This will relieve the SNCF of most of its debt and give it the financial room for manoeuvre it needs for the future,” the prime minister said. It involves wiping €25 billion from SNCF books in 2020 and another €10 billion in 2022. That would ease the burden on the railways, but only by shifting it to an area of state liabilities that still has to be footed by the taxpayer. The offer goes some way towards the demands of more moderate unions involved in a strike that has reduced trains services by about 50 percent for much of the past two months. The moderates, primarily the CFDT and Unsa unions, welcomed the concession, saying it showed it was worth negotiating. The CGT, another influential union but one which is opposed to EU-wide liberalisation in principle, said it saw no reason to call off a strike. “The conflict goes on,” said CGT rail union boss Laurent Brun. The reform, the biggest since the railways were nationalised in 1937, seeks to reduce costs and end hiring of rail staff – currently 150,000 – on more protective contracts than other sectors. An adviser to Macron said on Friday that taking on the SNCF debt, which is bigger than France’s annual defence budget, would raise public sector debt but not undo a commitment to keep the deficit within the EU-agreed ceiling of 3 percent of GDP. (FRANCE 24 with REUTERS) Daily newsletterReceive essential international news every morning Subscribe