Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credits: Eric Broncard / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP 6:48 p.m., February 20, 2024

SNCF traffic should be "almost normal" this weekend of crossover between the three school holiday zones, according to a source close to the matter, while the switchers are on strike on Friday and Saturday.

The SNCF switchers' strike planned for next Friday and Saturday should have little impact on train traffic, which should be "almost normal", a source close to the matter assured Tuesday. “The information available to date suggests almost normal traffic next weekend, with possibly some localized disruptions,” said this source in a message sent to AFP.

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The “maxi-chasing and crossing” of the school holidays

The switchers, responsible for regulating traffic on the network, are called to stop work by Sud-Rail on Friday February 23 and Saturday February 24, a week after a very successful controllers' strike, which led to the cancellation of a train out of two on the main lines. These dates have the particularity of being common to the three school holiday zones A, B and C. "It is the 'maxi-chasée-cross' of the winter holidays", indicates Sud-Rail, for whom "the possibilities for the box of making our action invisible, our actions are limited.”

“Significant mobilization in the Alps, the Paris region or New Aquitaine”

Switchers are called to mobilize to demand "a real massive hiring plan", an "increase in the operational circulation bonus" to 300 euros compared to 60 euros currently and questions of work organization with more predictable schedules, according to Julien Troccaz, Sud-Rail federal secretary. According to him, "the mobilization is likely to be significant in the Alps, the Paris region or New Aquitaine".

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On the side of SNCF Réseau, the infrastructure manager, we assure that the company has made recruitment efforts in recent years, going from 508 hires in 2020 to 654 in 2022, then 902 in 2023. During the last strike switchers in December 2022, around fifty TGVs out of 1,300 had been canceled during the first weekend of the Christmas holidays.