The Minister Delegate in charge of Transport Clément Beaune. BERTRAND GUAY / AFP
All the unions having called for the country to be “shut down” next Tuesday to protest against the pension reform, the local and national transport networks are likely to be very disrupted.
Prevention is better than cure. In anticipation of the new day of mobilization scheduled for March 7 by the inter-union opposed to the pension reform, which called on all sectors to put the country on the“stop”, the executive prepares minds. Traveling Friday to Limoges (Haute-Vienne) alongside the president of the SNCF Jean-Pierre Farandou, the Minister Delegate for Transport Clément Beaune urged “all those who have the possibility of teleworking obviously to seize it”next Tuesday.
The member of the government, however, recognized that not all employees, in view of their often manual jobs, will be able to make such arrangements. “The big companies, including the SNCF, are organizing themselves as well as possible. There is no miracle possible: when there are strikes, there are impacts. But for the transport plans to be as secure as possible, there will be communication to say what the impacts are line by line.“, specified Clément Beaune.
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RATP and SNCF should communicate their traffic forecasts on Sunday. Île-de-France Mobilités (IDFM) announced on Friday in “major disturbances” on public transport, calling “all Ile-de-France residents who can telecommute”. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGAC) asked companies to cancel Tuesday March 7 and Wednesday March 8 part of their flights, in anticipation of the air traffic controllers’ strike. And to reduce their flight programs by 20% at Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle and by 30% at Paris-Orly, Beauvais, Bordeaux, Lille, Lyon, Nantes, Marseille, Montpellier, Nice and Toulouse.
While the unions hope that next Tuesday will be a dark day with greater mobilization than previous days, the pension reform continues its parliamentary examination. If the government text is currently in the Senate, opponents of the text want to harden the movement, still hoping to make the government bend before the end of March.
A few days ago, the Minister Delegate for Transport had already warned: “March 7 will be hard (…) We will try to avoid it being hard and long.» «I strive sector by sector to ensure that the mobilization is the least strong“, he had indicated. Clément Beaune also recalled that after “pension reform, (will need) also that things are done through social dialogue“.
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