Three-month rail strike brings France to a standstill

French rail staff brought the country to a standstill yesterday with the first day of a three-month rolling strike in protest over Emmanuel Macron’s plans to overhaul state transport and liberalise the economy.

Dubbed “Black Tuesday” by the French media, the strikes are expected to see more than 75% of drivers walk out for two days out of every five until the end of June. All four main rail unions are observing the strike, with only one in eight high-speed TGV trains scheduled to run.

The coordinated protest, which followed a nationwide ‘day of action’ last week, “threatens to become the largest and most chaotic industrial action” against Macron’s reforms, says The Guardian.

Air France employees are also on strike, and there are calls for rubbish collectors and energy sector workers to walk out in solidarity.

The Guardian says the rail sector is “traditionally one of France’s riskiest political issues; a battleground on which Macron is refusing to budge in order to prove that he can face down strikes and continue with a liberalising overhaul of other sectors”.

The BBC says the unrest “presents Macron’s biggest challenge since his election last May”. However, “there are three reasons why President Macron feels relatively optimistic about the rail strike”, says the BBC’s Paris correspondent, Hugh Schofield.

First, unlike the last successful mass strike in the 1990s, “this time there can be no mistaking the government’s intention to reform”, fulfilling as it does one of Macron’s central campaign pledges on which he was elected.

Second, there is far less sympathy for rail workers after years of steadily declining services. And third, changes to working practices in recent years means more people can work remotely, lessening the impact of the strike.

All that said, “these will be tense weeks for the government”, says Schofield, “a wrong move and public opinion could easily shift back behind the strikers”.