Motorists wait at the entrance to the Channel Tunnel, in Calais on December 21, 2023, while Eurotunnel employees have decided on a surprise strike (AFP / Bernard BARRON)
Closed since midday due to a surprise strike by Eurotunnel staff, the Channel Tunnel was able to reopen Thursday evening, with the unions notably highlighting “result-producing” discussions with their management.
Eurostar, high-speed trains linking London to Paris and Brussels, should be able to run again on Friday.
“The social crisis movement at Eurotunnel is coming to an end” (…) The activity of the Channel Tunnel will resume this evening”, declared Franck Herent, FO delegate, who read a press release in front of the headquarters in Coquelles (Pas-de-Calais) – at the end of the tunnel on the French side -, where employees were gathered.
“If the company’s employees are returning to their jobs, it is because the negotiations that we fiercely conducted during the day with general management brought results that satisfy us,” he said. following a meeting with management.
Neither party has given details of the agreement. But management indicated in the afternoon that the unions were demanding a tripling of the bonus of 1,000 euros which had been promised to them.
Management and representatives of trade union organizations “reached an agreement today”, Eurotunnel confirmed in a press release, renewing “its apologies” to users.
“This agreement allows the gradual resumption of LeShuttle rail shuttle traffic from this evening (Thursday) and tomorrow (Friday) of the Eurostar” while “rail freight trains will also be able to resume their normal traffic this evening,” she said. announcement.
According to Le Parisien, Minister for Transport Clément Beaune put pressure on management to let go.
At Gare du Nord, in Paris, where Eurostar trains depart, December 21, 2023 (AFP / Dimitar DILKOFF)
Contacted by AFP, the Eurostar company, a subsidiary of SNCF, indicated that it would resume its rotations at normal times on Friday morning. It must add six additional trains from Friday to Sunday.
The surprise strike by French employees of Eurotunnel – a branch of the Getlink group – caused the tunnel to close at midday on Thursday, when the first departures for the Christmas holidays took place.
– “little people” –
Result: all trains between Paris and Brussels on one side and London on the other were canceled at the beginning of the afternoon, causing panic among thousands of departing travelers.
Eurostar canceled 30 trains on Thursday. The company said it would reimburse everyone whose train was canceled.
According to an AFP journalist present at St Pancras station in London, the reception and security agents at the station – who seemed just as caught off guard – even had to remove passengers who had already passed checks. security and were waiting on the platform.
As soon as the cancellation of the trains was announced, the many travelers who were planning to return to France or Belgium for the holidays from London rushed to their phones to try to change their ticket for the next day, or to book in a hurry. one of the flights still available from London.
“We had to go to Disneyland (near Paris, editor’s note) with the kids. We’re thinking of taking the ferry from Dover to Calais, but we need a car for that. It’s just too stressful. We can’t improvise a car trip with three children, you have to prepare yourself”, enraged Sam Boyal, a British traveler who remained at the dock.
Travelers who had to take a Eurostar, at St Pancras station in London, December 21, 2023 (AFP / JUSTIN TALLIS)
AFP journalists witnessed similar scenes in Paris and Lille.
The shuttles carrying cars and trucks into the tunnel – LeShuttle – also remained blocked in Calais and Folkestone. The recovery was rather sluggish on Thursday evening, according to testimonies from weary motorists posted on the social network X (formerly Twitter).
“This strong mobilization is not a surprise,” declared the inter-union, bringing together the six Eurotunnel unions (FO, CGT, Sud-Rail, CFE-CGC, CFDT and SACDC), in a press release. “For several months, all union organizations combined have alerted general management to the terrible deterioration of the social climate,” she writes.
“Beyond money, there are other things and our conditions are no longer what they were. Let them remember that behind the people in parkas, there are little people,” confided to AFP Cathia Capon, coordinator at the freight terminal during a gathering of employees in Coquelles.
Like other employees, she denounces the deterioration of working conditions and a change of mentality in the company.