Paris (AFP)

The social movement at the SNCF should again disrupt the movement of trains Sunday for its third day with a risk of stagnation, the unions continuing to defend the "right of withdrawal" following an accident, facing the direction and to the government who denounce a "wildcat strike".

The SNCF will only be able to report traffic forecasts at 7:30 am Sunday, but announced Saturday evening the circulation of one Ouigo train out of three, while none rolled Saturday.

"We are in a situation of blockage", summarizes Didier Mathis, Unsa railway, for whom "if there is no progress on the part of management, we can assume that the movement will continue because the danger problem is not solved. "

As for his colleague from SUD-Rail, Julien Troccaz, he considers it "difficult to make predictions" as to the continuation of the movement, because "the right of withdrawal is individual". But he believes that the boss of the SNCF and the executive "play the total decay" of the conflict.

At the origin of the movement, an accident occurred Wednesday night, when a TER connecting Charleville-Mezieres to Reims hit an exceptional road convoy stuck on a level crossing in Saint-Pierre-sur-Vence (Ardennes), making 11 wounded many hospitalized, according to the prefecture. The driver, who rescued passengers while he himself was injured, was the only SNCF agent on the train.

From Thursday and more Friday and Saturday at service, drivers and controllers have argued their right of withdrawal.

- "anger of the agents" -

The SUD-Rail, CGT-Cheminots, FO-Cheminots and Fgaac-CFDT unions are contesting this mode of operation, which makes it possible to run trains without a controller, evoking safety risks for travelers. Management argues that it "has been around for decades".

Against a backdrop of major disruption, mainly on the TER, Intercités and the Transilien network on Saturday, day off on vacation, the tone is gradually rising between the executive and the management, on the one hand, and the SNCF unions of the other.

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe denounced a "diversion of the right of withdrawal that has turned into a wildcat strike", with "an unacceptable impact" for users. He "asked the SNCF to examine all the possible follow-up, including judicial".

Earlier in the morning, the head of the SNCF Guillaume Pepy had judged "not admissible" the movement which he described as "surprise strike". For him, "there is today no immediate or serious security risk at the SNCF, so this right of withdrawal is not legitimate".

The Secretary of State for Transport, Jean-Baptiste Djebbari, for its part, estimated Saturday that the SNCF could pronounce individual sanctions against the railway workers who took part in this social movement, in an interview with the Parisian.

"The level of violence of the statements sets the tone of the sequel, because it is difficult to say + we get around the table + when we talk about the judiciary and we are almost taken for criminals," insists Julien Troccaz, from SUD-Rail.

The management and the government "do not understand that there is anger of the agents about security, it has nothing to do with December 5 and pensions," he insists in reference to the next day of action against pension reform.

Same story at the railway Unsa. This is not a movement to put pressure on the pension file or as part of the reform of the SNCF, "we are not in the convergence of struggles.We do not mix everything", insists Didier Mathis.

Unlike Unsa, it does not intend to separate the claims and calls to participate "massively" in the action day of December 5 against the pension reform and adding "business topics, including security" . "You evacuate security, you will have a generalized conflict", warns the union.

© 2019 AFP