Up To Date france

An ongoing strike launched by train drivers and conductors that paralysed the services in the last seven days would continue until another week, said unions.

French railways operator SNCF previously said that the company is willing to conduct negotiations with the unions, setting 21 April 2010 as the date for the round-table meeting.

The railways operator sent a letter to the CGT, Sud-Rail, Unsa and CFDT unions, saying that the talks could be conducted earlier but they should first go back to work and restore normal level of railway service.

The CGT refused to accept the offer and stated that the union want dialogues immediately and not in the scheduled date.

The railways operator said that 79 percent of TER services will be continuing operations on Tuesday, but it seems that the figure conceals a number of huge regional differences.

Southern France is the greatly affected region by the strike, which started Wednesday of last week.

The main Mediterranean coast routes, together with a few number of local TER services, resumed operation on Tuesday.

CGT union leaders Michaël Albin and Cyrille Poggi said that the train drivers would lose €500 up to €600 of their pay packets for this month as a consequence of the walkout.

Across the country, only 58 percent of Corail services are functioning, as well as 82percent of TGVs and 71 percent of Intercités trains.

Paris is still affected by the strike, particularly the B and D RER lines. International railway service operated by Thalys and Eurostar are running normal operations.

France’s rail employees went on strike Tuesday over job cuts, an action that led to the cancellation of every domestic overnight courses. However, international trains continued to be on schedule, according to officials.

French railway operator SNCF claimed that it anticipated the rail traffic to be interrupted for around two days, although it could possibly extend in some areas.

While the international night service would continue, all of the12 night trains plying national routes were not anticipated to be in operation, SNCF said.

The SNCF expected up to 60% of regional trains and 70% of all high-speed trains to operate on Wednesday.

Eurostar traffic to the United Kingdom was expected to run as usual, along with trains to the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium.

The walkout has divided rail employees, with the CGT – the biggest union – along with Sud-Rail – the third-largest – calling for the industrial action.

Each day of the industrial action is likely to cost €20 million ($27 million) for the firm, which recorded a net loss of €980 million in 2009.

The latest strike is the third to be carried out by rail employees this year, with the CGT union criticising the restructuring plans, which are expected to result to job cuts.

Guillaume Pepy, SNCF chief, said that “negotiations come before strikes”.

“If not, we will never be able to reduce the number of strikes at SNCF”, he added.

Last year, SNCF claimed that it would make an investment worth billions of euros in a proposal to overhaul the freight industry between 2010 and 2015. Nonetheless, it made no reference as to how many jobs will be affected by the plan.

Didier Le Reste, a CGT official, recently said that the firm wants to slash 8,000 jobs prior to 2012.

Hundreds of thousands of French public sector workers went on nationwide strike Tuesday to protest against the government’s economic policies and pension reforms.

The industrial action, which badly affected transport, schools, postal and other services, comes in the wake of the ruling centre-right UMP party’s defeat in regional elections on Sunday, wherein left-wing parties took almost all of the 22 regions in mainland France.

Government figures showed that around 17% of civil servants joined the strike, down slightly against last year’s 26%.

According to the biggest French union CGT, 80,000 people joined in 180 rallies nationwide, not counting a huge march in Paris that started Tuesday afternoon. The turnout was believed to be less than half the level predicted by unions, town-by-town police figures have shown.

Sarkozy had run his 2007 campaign on a manifesto of economic reform. However, he is under growing pressure from the country’s influential unions over the increasing cost of living, job cuts and a controversial reform package that is likely to increase the retirement age.

Pensions are a major concern for French public workers. Employee’s pensions, even in private firms, are largely handled by the public sector.

The president has earmarked a pension reform as his next main challenge but workers, notably civil servants, fear that such will mean raising the number of years they have to work to be entitled for a full pension.

This is a critical issue for French train drivers as they have been traditionally enjoy earlier retirement compared to other civil servants.

Since 1982, reforming the pension scheme in France has been enshrined and is considered a sensitive and controversial matter.