Originally Posted by
172_driver
Lot's of talking. Does anyone actually know the reason behind what's going on?
Yes, to a degree...how long have you got?
The situation as seen by someone resident in France: Government need to reduce public spending/balance the books, a stated aim (by President Macron) to move French Labour laws and businesses into the 21st century, syndicats (unions) trying to hold the line (I think unless you are very left of centre politically it’s hard to be too sympathetic with some of the rail workers T&Cs, especially those regarding retirement), a system of industrial relations that generally in most industries seems to hinge on confrontation,
then negotiation, rather than the other way round., on an emotional level the fact is the 50th anniversary of 1968 has been mentioned....
..That’s very very very much a simplistic
précis, so is the one in this link, but it’s a start:
https://www.independent.co.uk/travel...-a8302951.html
TBF if you live there and know the system it is possible to work around the disruption (both train and air) if you have a handle on the dates, but I know it’s harder for visitors. FWIW according to some sources the strikes are losing support and there are certainly claimed to now be more trains running than mentioned in the Independent piece, probably mainly due to the financial impact on those striking. In any event it will probably calm down in a month or less when the holiday season starts.
As for the side issue mentioned by Tigger of a certain airline proactively dropping French flights at the hint of IA whereas others such as Easyjet and BA trying to continue operating......nothing new there.