France Fears Economic Fallout of Strikes
Something to remember: like good food and good wine, strikes are another fact of life in France.
That June the country was weeks into a public sector walkout over pension reform, and the worry in the press was what it was all going to cost. Teachers, air traffic controllers and the railways went out together. The reform passed anyway.
It has kept happening, and the pattern barely changes. Rail went out again in 2018 over a restructuring of the railway. In December 2019 the SNCF struck over pensions for more than a month, the longest continuous rail stoppage the country had seen. In 2023 it was pensions again, when the retirement age moved from 62 to 64. There was another round this June. If you are planning a trip of any length, assume you will travel through one, and plan so it costs you a day rather than the trip.
The good news is that it is no longer a guessing game. A 2007 law changed how this works: anyone in a job critical to running trains has to declare 48 hours ahead whether they intend to strike, and SNCF has to publish the revised timetable by 5pm the day before. So the evening before a strike day, you can know what is actually running.
What that means in practice:
- TGV and Intercités need a reservation, so those are the trains cancelled outright. Regional TER services are likelier to run thin than to stop.
- A cancelled train is refunded even on a ticket sold as non-refundable, and exchanges are free. Claim before the original departure time.
- A pass does not exempt you from the reservation, and a cancelled reservation is money back separately.
- Strike days are announced days ahead, so the fix is usually moving a travel day, not abandoning a leg.
Check what is running on SNCF's traffic info page, and keep the Man in Seat 61's France page bookmarked for everything else. He keeps it current in a way no printed guide manages.
Posted 03 June 2003 by Ant in France, Eurail Blog Archives · updated by Chris