This is a problem that particularly affects Hauts-de-France.

The Minister Delegate for Transport, Clément Beaune, promised on Monday to "accelerate training and recruitment" in the face of the shortage of SNCF drivers, which is causing numerous cancellations of regional express trains (TER).

“I'm not going to tell you that from tomorrow, all the trains will be operating in an ideal way.

On the other hand (…) we are going to speed up the training and recruitment of drivers”, declared the minister on the sidelines of a trip to Dunkirk.

The lack of drivers has forced the SNCF to remove TER in several regions, including Hauts-de-France, where 136 trains have been removed daily since October 24, according to the president of the region Xavier Bertrand.

"There is about a 10% reduction in supply" in the region, agreed the minister.

“Behind a somewhat global and cold figure, it is sometimes hours of waiting”, he added, denouncing a situation “neither acceptable nor bearable”.



Clément Beaune asks "the SNCF for a plan to resolve these difficulties as quickly as possible", because "we cannot live in the galley for more months", he insisted, affirming that he would meet "in the next few hours" with the president of the public company, Jean-Pierre Farandou.

He was also due to meet Xavier Bertrand on Monday afternoon, who complained in a letter to Jean-Pierre Farandou on Friday that the train cuts in his region exceeded "largely the 136 cuts already imposed".

"It's still incredible that a company the size of the SNCF can discover in terms of human resources that all of a sudden, overnight, it lacks 65 drivers", launched his side the vice -president of the region in charge of Transport, Franck Dhersin, present Monday in Dunkirk.

Regarding the acceleration of recruitment promised by Clément Beaune, he stressed that it took "two months to choose the candidates and then 12 months to train them".

“We know very well that it will take months to return to a normal situation, but the State can find ways, elsewhere, to ensure that we quickly pass no longer to 130 trains but to only 50 trains which will be missing” , he said.

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Hauts-de-France: The SNCF will finally cut 140 trains per day

  • Company

  • SNCF

  • Clement Beaune

  • Shortage

  • Train