After the series of cancellations this Thursday on the lines using the Channel Tunnel, the unions announced the end of the strike early in the evening. Traffic should return to normal on Friday morning.
Good news for Eurostar travelers whose train was due to use the Channel Tunnel in the coming hours, or even days. The surprise strike launched this Thursday afternoon is now over. “Channel tunnel activity will resume this evening,” announced Franck Herent, FO delegate, in front of the headquarters in Coquelles, in Pas-de-Calais, specifying that the negotiations with management which took place this 21 December “brought results which satisfied” the employees on strike. Please note, however, that at 8:30 p.m., the train from Paris Gare du Nord to London St Pancras International, the last of the day, was still canceled.
The return to normal should therefore be effective on Friday morning, for the first trains of the day, whether between Paris and London, but also between London and Brussels-South, Amsterdam Centraal or even Rotterdam Centraal. The connections between these different cities, also passing through the Channel Tunnel, also suffered from this Thursday’s surprise strike.
A deterioration of the social climate
“Our services are currently unable to operate through the Channel Tunnel until at least mid-afternoon.” This was the message initially published this Thursday, December 21, 2023 by Eurostar France on X. In question? A surprise strike by French employees of Eurotunnel, the company managing the Channel Tunnel. As the movement continued into the early evening of Thursday, all Eurostar trains to or from London St Pancras had been canceled for the day. Four trains which were already on their way when the strike began had even had to turn around. On the line which connects Paris Gare du Nord to London St Pancras International, only four trains were able to arrive safely this Thursday. The last of them had left at 9:11. Since the 11:12 a.m. connection, departing from Paris, the trips had all been canceled.
“For several months, all union organizations combined have alerted general management to the terrible deterioration of the social climate,” underlined in a press release the inter-union, which brings together the six Eurotunnel unions, namely FO, CGT, Sud-Rail , CFE-CGC, CFDT and SACDC. Eurotunnel management explained for its part that “the trade union organizations [avaient] rejected the exceptional bonus of 1,000 euros announced at the end of the year by management and called for a strike to demand a tripling of it.