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TEHRAN, April 04 - France faced a second day of transport chaos Wednesday as rail workers pursued rolling strikes, causing major disruptions for train travellers in the biggest challenge yet to President Emmanuel Macron's resolve to push through sweeping reforms.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) - Only one in seven high-speed TGV trains and one in five regional trains were expected to be running, state rail operator SNCF warned, after similar stoppages on the first day of the walkout that French media dubbed "Black Tuesday".
The strike is being led by SNCF staff but workers at Air France as well as garbage collectors and some energy workers also staged separate walkouts in a growing atmosphere of social strife 11 months after 40-year-old Macron came to power.
Macron's government says the heavily-indebted SNCF needs deep reforms as EU countries prepare to open passenger rail to competition by 2020, arguing it is 30 percent more expensive to run a train in France than elsewhere.
Unions fear the changes are a first step towards privatising the national rail operator -- a claim the government denies -- and object to plans to strip new hires of a special rail workers' status guaranteeing jobs for life and early retirement.
More than three-quarters of train drivers joined the first day of the walkout.
With stoppages planned for two days out of five until June 28, weeks of disruption lie ahead for France's 4.5 million daily train passengers.
Prime Minister Edouard Philippe admitted Tuesday that people using the SNCF rail network have "difficult days ahead of them".
Source: AFP
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