A strike by SNCF controllers will disrupt rail traffic on Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 December, when many French people take the train to find their families during the holidays.
Nearly 200,000 travelers should not be able to board a train.
The CEO of SNCF announced on Wednesday an exceptional reimbursement of tickets up to 200%.
20 Minutes looks
back on the social movement and on the terms of reimbursement for each user who remains at the dock.
Galley weekend to be expected.
Two strike notices running from December 23 to 26 and then from December 30 to January 2, 2023 were filed in early December by CGT and SUD-Rail, two of the four representative unions of the SNCF.
However, these two organizations did not call a strike.
The social movement that is disrupting this holiday week is initiated by the Collective ASCT (Agent du service commercial trains), a non-union organization which brings together nearly 3,500 of the 10,000 SNCF controllers.
These controllers, who had already gone on strike the first weekend of December (60% TGV and Intercités cancelled), are demanding better pay and improved working conditions from their management.
Negotiations have not yet led to an agreement between this group and the transport company.
Without a sufficient number of skippers, many TGVs have already been canceled this Wednesday.
20 Minutes takes stock of this social movement when around 200,000 of the 800,000 travelers expected this weekend should not be able to board a train.
How many trains will run this weekend?
Only two out of three trains will run on this first holiday weekend, which is also Christmas.
Cancellations almost mainly concern TGVs.
On Friday, two out of three TGVs should run on the Atlantic and Mediterranean axes, one out of two trains on the North axis (the Paris-Lille shuttle will be almost normal) and three out of four East TGVs.
A TGV on two province-province will circulate, according to a press release published by the SNCF on Tuesday.
Three out of four Ouigo should also be able to leave.
Saturday and Sunday, there will undoubtedly be a little more cancellations than Friday, warned the SNCF, without having yet confirmed the figures.
On the company's website, weekend cancellation rates are much higher than Friday.
Half of the 20 TGV Paris-Rennes are displayed canceled on Saturday, while 13 of the 22 TGV Paris-Bordeaux will not leave on Sunday December 25.
The Intercités network generally spared by this social movement.
How will travelers be notified of cancellations?
The SNCF began, Tuesday morning, to send SMS and e-mails concerning the maintenance or not of the trains to travelers “Having a reservation and having left their contact details”.
Free exchanges are offered to customers in all trains “where there is space”.
Problem: most maintained trains are already full several days before departure.
As a reminder, an employee must announce himself as a striker at least forty-eight hours before the start of a possible movement, which in principle leaves time for the SNCF to warn travelers upstream, so that they can exchange their tickets. , get reimbursed, or look for an alternative solution (carpooling, bus, plane, etc.).
“We invite you to consult the circulation of trains the day before your trip from 5 p.m. on sncf.com or your usual channels”, specifies the company all the same on its site.
In what form is the “200% reimbursement” promised by the SNCF carried out?
This Wednesday morning, at the microphone of Franceinfo, the CEO of the SNCF Christophe Fanichet announced a reimbursement of the price of the ticket up to 200% for travelers affected by the strike, while presenting "the company's apologies".
“Customers always have the choice between exchange and refund.
Either there is an exchange free of charge and at no additional cost, or they request the reimbursement of their ticket, which will be reimbursed at 200%”, detailed Christophe Fanichet this morning.
🗣 Strike at the SNCF ➡️ "I have decided on exceptional reimbursement measures. We will reimburse 200%. It's Christmas, this strike is unacceptable. This gesture, we had to", announces Christophe Fanichet on franceinfo. The strike “will cost several tens of millions of euros.”
pic.twitter.com/2HPRcckvo9
— franceinfo (@franceinfo) December 21, 2022
Access to this content has been blocked to respect your choice of consent
By clicking on "
I ACCEPT
", you accept the deposit of cookies by external services and will thus have access to the content of our partners
I ACCEPT
And to better remunerate 20 Minutes, do not hesitate to accept all cookies, even for one day only, via our "I accept for today" button in the banner below.
More information on the Cookie Management Policy page.
In practice, customers will not be refunded double the ticket price in the form of money.
The compensation takes place in two parts, as noted by
Le Parisien
: a cash refund of the entire initial ticket, then a voucher for "100% of the price of the ticket", valid for a period of 'a year.
This measure also concerns people who decide not to exchange their canceled ticket for another train available on the same route, at a different time.
“In addition to the full refund of your canceled ticket, you will also receive a voucher for 100% of the ticket price,” SNCF responded on Twitter this Wednesday to a user who asked for clarification.
our file on the strike at the sncf
For travelers who requested their reimbursement before this announcement, do not panic: the compensation is retroactive.
In the case of booking a round trip, if one of the two trains is cancelled, it will be necessary to wait "for the return to be made" before being able to request a refund.
Another important clarification: to benefit from the reimbursement, “customers must request it before the train leaves”, specifies the company on Twitter.
Finally, contacted by franceinfo, the SNCF clarified this afternoon that the exchange of tickets is “free and at no additional cost”, which means that there is no differential to pay “on the same journey”.
The procedure is detailed here, on the SNCF website... which indicates that for paper tickets, it is best to go to the station or call 36 35.
The protest movement could continue over the New Year weekend.
Company
SNCF strike: Travelers deprived of trains for Christmas and New Year will be reimbursed at "200%", announces the CEO
Company
SNCF strike: For government spokesperson Olivier Véran, "at Christmas, we don't go on strike"
Company
SNCF strike
Christmas
SNCF
School vacation
Transportation