France braced Monday for the start of three months of rolling rail strikes, the first in a series of walkouts affecting everything from energy to garbage collection as President Emmanuel Macron’s reform agenda comes up against resistance.
Staff at state rail operator SNCF will walk off the job from 7.00 pm (1700 GMT), kicking off stoppages on two out of every five days which unions warn will cause major disruption for France’s 4.5 million train passengers.
The real action begins on what the press has dubbed “black Tuesday”, with only one high-speed TGV train out of eight set to operate and one regional train out of five in the strike against a major overhaul of the debt-ridden SNCF.
