Travelers in front of the departures board at Lyon station, in Paris, February 16, 2024 (AFP/Ian LANGSDON)
The strike by SNCF controllers continues on Saturday in the middle of the winter holidays and with only one in two TGVs in circulation, affecting a total of 150,000 travelers.
This weekend sees the first returns from zone C (Paris, Montpellier and Toulouse) but also departures from zone A (Lyon, Bordeaux, Dijon…).
Train traffic has been “severely disrupted” since Thursday 8:00 p.m. and until Monday 8:00 a.m., warned the SNCF.
Some “850,000 French people will finally be able to go on vacation” but “I regret that 150,000 French people will not be able to leave” because “they have not necessarily found solutions”, explained Friday on BFMTV Christophe Fanichet, the CEO of SNCF Voyageurs .
Despite everything, the strike did not lead to chaos in the stations, with travelers taking the lead by giving up their trip, changing their tickets or adopting other modes of transport.
Priority was given to connections to ski resorts in the Alps, where trains were full in both directions, according to the company.
This is where the traffic was concentrated this weekend: on the roads, traffic was also very difficult on Saturday in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.
The A43 between Isère and Savoie was particularly affected throughout the day, and still very congested around 5:00 p.m. between Chambéry and Albertville, but also in the afternoon the A86 in the Paris region.
A peak in traffic jams was reached around 3:45 p.m., with 280 kilometers accumulated on the national network, according to Bison Futé. Notable slowdowns were also reported on the A6 south of Dijon.
There were also some travelers on the roads who saw their trains cancelled.
The Blablacar platform has observed a “doubling of demand for reservations” for carpooling and buses since the announcement of the SNCF transport plan on Wednesday.
Blablacar indicated on Saturday that it had added additional journeys to “cope with demand”, notably from Paris to Rennes, Toulouse, Nice and Marseille, and that carpooling places remained.
The SNCF had indicated that the service would be reduced by half on the TGV Inoui and Ouigo lines, as well as for the Intercités. Traffic is better on local lines with “on average, 8 TER out of 10”.
The customers concerned were all notified by email or SMS, assures the SNCF.
Certain lines are more affected by the strike, like Paris-Bordeaux, where two thirds of trains are canceled.
There should be more trains on the Atlantic axis from Sunday, TGV Atlantique boss Franck Dubourdieu announced to AFP. If some customers change their ticket to travel on Monday, “we will be able to transport everyone,” he assured Friday.
© 2024 AFP
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