Minister of Sustainable Development Elisabeth Borne again called on Thursday to avoid travel as much as possible and to favor teleworking, on the second day of a heat wave that affects almost the entire territory. "I call everyone who can avoid or delay their trip to do so," she said during a trip to the Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris. "Employers, employees, who can use teleworking are really invited to do so."
A "strong recommendation"
The minister had launched the same message the day before, asking travelers to avoid non-essential trips to or from the 20 departments placed in red vigilance by Météo-France, which include the entire Ile-de-France. "It's not just advice," she said, "it's really a strong recommendation." "When we are at these levels (of heat), it is not only the fragile people who may have health problems," she said, recalling that the SNCF had announced an exchange or refund tickets until Monday.
Thursday, temperatures should exceed 40 ° C on a large quarter northeast of the country in particular, with peaks at 43 ° C locally. These heats can also have an impact on railway equipment, said RATP President Catherine Guillouard and Ile-de-France Region President Valérie Pécresse, who attended the meeting. Catherine Guillouard said that the equipment was under surveillance, including rails that must not exceed 57 degrees, otherwise it would have to slow down the pace of the subways.
Hardware issues
"Different problems" of equipment took place on Wednesday, added Elisabeth Borne. "At the same time the catenary which fell in Belgium, a fire of a post at Noisy-le-Sec which blocked the Gare de l'Est ... This type of incident, with these exceptional heats, can unfortunately intervene A few years ago, with these temperatures, we would certainly have had to put speed limits and even stop the transport. "
Rail traffic was gradually returning to normal Thursday in eastern Paris after the fire of a transformer Wednesday night at the station of Noisy-le-Sec (Seine-Saint-Denis), which inter alia stopped the traffic on the roads. E lines of the RER and P of the Transilien. These two lines were still disturbed on Thursday morning.