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Thursday, 28 January 2010

Salon des Vins de Loire: national rail strike threatened for Wednesday

 
TGV entering Tours station

Four syndicats (unions) representing French rail workers have called for a national rail strike next Wednesday (3rd February). The strike is due to start at 8pm Tuesday evening and finish 8am Thursday morning. It is not clear yet how much disruption there will be but with four syndicats involved there may well be few trains running on Wednesday. The SNCF will announce on Tuesday how much of the service will run. This will may mean some French visitors will leave the Salon earlier than planned on Tuesday but it is more likely to affect foreign visitors planning to travel back on the Wednesday.

There was a time during the 1990s when the French respected the seasons: skiiing in February, asparagus in April, strawberries in May, the vendange in September and strikes in November, so that they could be settled in time for Christmas. Sadly this respect for tradition has disappeared: now, like haricots verts, you can come across strikes all year round!   

Some further details here (Le Monde) and here (La Nouvelle République).

2 comments:

  1. Should spice up my return journey from the Salon a bit!

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  2. I'm afraid it may well do. Just have to hope that the traffic around Paris isn't too bad. Will depend on whether and how badly the Metro and RER are affected, although as the dispute is with the SNCF they not be.

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