LPassengers whose trains have been canceled for the Christmas weekend due to a strike by controllers will be reimbursed for double the amount of their ticket, Christophe Fanichet, CEO of SNCF Voyageurs, announced on Wednesday. “For travelers who will not circulate and whose train will be canceled, it is 200% reimbursement”, he said on France Info, specifying that this strike would cost “several tens of millions of euros” to the SNCF.
“I want to apologize to the company,” said the leader straight away. “A strike for the Christmas holidays is really unacceptable, I’m angry,” he said. The strike, which the SNCF unions did not openly call but for which they left notice, will cause the cancellation of around one in three trains this weekend, mainly TGVs.
Only two out of three trains will run this weekend. The cancellations concern almost exclusively TGVs, the Intercités being generally spared. On Friday, in detail, two out of three TGVs should run on the Atlantic and Mediterranean axes, three out of four East TGVs and one out of two trains on the North axis. The Paris-Lille shuttle will however be almost normal. TGVs between provincial stations should be more impacted. Three Ouigo out of four should also circulate. The Intercités will run normally, even if deletions have been reported.
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As spotted by BFMTV, the director of TGV-Intercités, Alain Krakovitch, announced that the SNCF was going to send a special children’s TGV for the Christmas weekend. Circulating from north to south, this train “will allow at least 450 children to be able to join their families for Christmas”. This initiative was taken as part of the SNCF Junior & Cie child support service. The stated objective of the company is to transport all the children who were planned as part of Junior & Cie and whose trains have been cancelled.
Free exchanges with no price difference
The SNCF promises that travelers can exchange their tickets online free of charge, if their initial train is cancelled, without having to pay any price difference or exchange fees, certainly on condition of finding places in trains that are now almost full for the weekend. “The exchange is free, they can take another train to the same destination, any other day, without any fare increase,” repeated Christophe Fanichet. The SNCF has not yet given the details of the cancellations for Saturday and Sunday, but has already said that the situation should be slightly degraded compared to Friday.
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In front of the Gare de Lyon shop, Wednesday morning, customers took their troubles patiently without getting upset, but the tension was palpable, especially among people with children. Some do not hide their annoyance. “Privileged, it happens every three months”, annoys a man who wonders how he will return home with his wife and children…READ ALSO Planes and trains: update on strikes for Christmas and New Year’s Day
The attitude of the controllers, who launched this strike by organizing on Facebook over the unions, somewhat annoys the management of the SNCF, which calculates that wage increases represent 12% on average over two years. Last year, a strike also ruined the first weekend of departures during the Christmas holidays and the railway company had for the first time decided to reimburse travelers for double the amount of their canceled ticket.
“At Christmas, we don’t go on strike”
Within the government, this strike does not fail to react. “At Christmas, we don’t go on strike,” stormed government spokesman Olivier Véran on Wednesday. “I obviously do not question the right to strike or the right of employees to demonstrate or to mobilize, but, frankly, is it essential to do so on a Christmas weekend? The answer is no, ”said the minister at the microphone of France Inter.
While assuring that he did not want to “put oil on the fire”, he explained that “in just under two years, there will have been nearly 12% salary increases for people who today go on strike”.