After 45 days of strike, traffic should return to normal on Monday on 12 metro lines. - ROMUALD MEIGNEUX / SIPA

  • The striking drivers voted on Friday to suspend the movement until Friday, January 24.
  • After more than forty days of strikes, the mobilized workers need to renew their strength, according to the unions.
  • A pause which does not bode well for the cessation of the movement, the strikers remaining determined.

After a month and a half of strike against the pension reform project, the RATP traffic will know a real better this Monday. Eight metro lines (1, 2, 3bis, 7bis, 9, 10, 11, and 14) as well as all the trams and the RER A will run normally, there will be 4 trains out of 5 on the 6, the 7 and the 8 as well as on the REB while this will be slightly more disturbed on the 3, 4, 5, 12 and 13.

[Social Movement] ⚠️ For Monday January 20, #RATP forecasts traffic in very clear improvement on its whole network compared to the working days of the previous weeks. The forecasts ⬇️ and on https://t.co/OElUNYGYky pic.twitter.com/SegD9NVyfJ

- RATP Group (@RATPgroup) January 19, 2020

At the origin of this clear improvement in traffic, the vote on Friday in general assemblies by the drivers on strike of the suspension of the movement from Monday. For the strikers, it is a question of "regaining strength", Laurent Djebali, representative of metro and RER drivers at Unsa RATP, the union's leading union, told AFP.

Money, the nerve of war

"After 45 days of strike, a majority of general assemblies of the rail network decided to redirect, on Monday, the unlimited movement to focus on another form of action," said in a press release the Unsa RATP Pôle Tractio. For many strikers, this decision was decided "for pecuniary reasons": "We can understand that some colleagues need to bail out," said Laurent Djebali.

"It is obviously a decision that is very positive for users," says Jean-Claude Delarue, president of the Federation of users of transport and public services. Users are not necessarily against the right to strike at SNCF and RATP, just not too much is needed anyway. The annoying thing about this type of action is that it attacks only those who are not responsible for anything in the current situation, that is to say the users. "On the contrary, he calls for" the free strike, a form of strike which does not bother users since all the trains run but without control on board ".

"This battle continues"

This break, say the unions, does not bode well for the cessation of the movement. "As soon as the colleagues are ready, we start again, hoping for a convergence of struggles," said Laurent Djebali. There is no question of calling an end to the indefinite strike, on the contrary. "Same story with Solidaires who ensures, in a press release published this Sunday," whether it is the strategy of the strike strike or highlights, this battle continues ".

With in mind the next mobilization of January 24, the day of the presentation of the reform project in the Council of Ministers. "It will be a very strong day of strike," promises François-Xavier Arouls, co-secretary of the Solidaires RATP union. In the meantime, various actions will be carried out during the week, says the union member, without the terms being defined yet.

Our file on pensions

For Bernard Vivier, director of the Higher Institute of Labor, this pause, however, marks "a weakening of the strike movement". "The period which opens will be more and more peaceful in the street but more and more sensitive to Matignon and the Elysée, he believes. The conference on the financing of pensions soon opens and there, if the trade union organizations are not satisfied with a large part of their demands, it can put the oil on the fire. "A fire that François-Xavier Arouls cannot imagine dying out:" From the start, we have been against this reform and we think we can gain as much as employees from other sectors join the fight and c is what we expected, we are totally determined. "

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  • Pension reform
  • RATP strike
  • Paris
  • SNCF strike