A chaotic weekend awaits at the stations. Only one in two TGVs should run during this school holiday weekend due to a controllers’ strike, Christophe Fanichet, the boss of SNCF Voyageurs, announced on Wednesday February 14.
“The objective is to ensure one in two TGVs running this weekend”, with “as many Ouigos as Inouis” and priority for “departures and returns from the snow”, indicated Christophe Fanichet on franceinfo, specifying that “the disruptions are Friday, Saturday and Sunday”.
Regarding the children, “we will do our best”. I hope that almost all of the children will be able to leave thanks to our service”, according to him. This movement is “incomprehensible because the company’s commitments which were made in December 2022 are kept”, underlined Christophe Fanichet. Customers, who are informed by SMS and email, are encouraged to postpone their trip to Thursday or Monday.
“Exceptional compensation”
The SNCF is also planning “exceptional compensation”, the conditions of which must be specified on Wednesday afternoon, for those who are unable to travel.
The CGT and Sud-Rail are calling for a strike for the weekend of February 17-18, in the middle of the school holidays in zone C (Ile-de-France) and at the start of those in zone A (Bordeaux, Lyon, Grenoble…), the Unsa having for its part not filed a notice and the CFDT-Cheminots lifted its notice.
SNCF CEO Jean-Pierre Farandou on Tuesday called on controllers to “think” and “take the dimension” of the concessions made by management before carrying out their strike threat. “We are increasing employment, we are increasing wages, we are offering a platform for social progress, I do not see why in response we would have a disruption for the French who want to go on vacation,” estimated Jean-Pierre Farandou.
To try to avoid the movement, management decided to pay an additional bonus of 400 euros in March for railway workers, increased the residence allowance for employees living where the real estate market is in tension, agreed to 3,000 additional promotions, and decided to create 1,100 additional jobs, including 200 controllers, Jean-Pierre Farandou said.