One of France’s biggest rail freight players is expecting a one-day, nationwide day of action on today, Thursday 18 September. Supported by the main labour unions at state-run railway SNCF, it is expected to have an important knock-on effect on the operation of its trains.
“Given the information we have received from French rail infrastructure manager, SNCF Réseau, we expect significant disruption to the rail network, leading to a severe reduction in our services. As usual, the Paris and Marseille regions will be affected,” Alexandre Gallo, President and CEO of DB Cargo France, told RailFreight.com on the eve of the protests.
Just last week, ‘block everything’ protests across France, called by left and far-left activists opposed to French government policies, brought disruption to the schedules of around 15 trains operated by DB Cargo France. It was possible that today’s action would hit the company’s operations harder than on 10 September but a clear picture would only emerge as the day unfolded, Gallo observed. “Between the train paths that will be cancelled and the trains that will be delayed en route, it’s difficult to predict what the impact will be.”
Contacted by RailFreight.com, a spokesperson for SNCF Réseau said the national day of action was likely to lead to disruptions in rail freight operations. The SouthEast, Greater Paris and Rhône-Alpes regions, as well as international traffic, will be most affected. Our teams are currently working to adapt train paths in order to limit the impact on rail freight. Customers are being kept informed of developments in real time.” For its part, no one at Rail Logistics Europe (RLE), which groups all of SNCF’s activities in the rail freight sector, was immediately available to comment when approached by RailFreight.com.
Passenger traffic given priority
Gallo claimed that that in the event of strikes, it was customary for SNCF Réseau’s focus to be on ensuring that traffic control and signalling stations remained open at peak times for passenger trains but not during night-time periods when most freight trains operated. “Once again, this day of action will demonstrate that passenger traffic has a priority over freight.”
SNCF is looking to maintain 90% of passenger services on its long-distance, high-speed TGV network but only 50% of trains on inter-regional services. As for regional and local services, on average, three out of five trains should be running on Thursday but the situation could be worse in the Greater Paris area.
Workers at SNCF are set to be joined in their action by staff from the health, education, and aviation sectors, with unions denouncing “brutal” State budget cuts announced this summer. The authorities are expecting over 400,000 people to demonstrate across the country, while unions claim the turnout of protesters could reach one million.
Legal action
Just under a year ago, nine rail freight operators took legal action against SNCF Réseau before the Paris Commercial Court, claiming that it had abused a force majeure clause to avoid compensating them for train cancellations during strikes in 2023 .
Providing an update on the case, Gallo, who is also president of French rail body, AFRA, said: “We have received the dates for the preliminary hearings. It will be a lengthy process. Compensation as such is not necessarily the issue, what we are challenging is SNCF Réseau’s systematic application of the force majeure clause whenever national cross-industry industrial action takes place.
“Through this joint action, we are pushing SNCF Réseau to maintain freight traffic in the same way as passenger trains.”