Strike on Friday March 10: trains, planes, RER, refineries, waste… update on mobilization until the weekend
As announced by the unions who wish a “France at a standstill” to protest against the pension reform, the mobilization continues at the end of the week. This Friday, and sometimes even this weekend, the forecasts in the various sectors affected bear witness to the determination of the opponents of the project. The trend, however, is for improvement in some branches, but for hardening or at least consistency in others. Le Parisien takes stock, sector by sector.
Fewer trains until the weekend
Traffic will remain “very severely disrupted” on the TGV Inoui and the OUIGO for the day on Friday, indicates SNCF Voyageurs in its press release, with 1 train out of 2 on average. In detail, it will be necessary to count on 2 trains out of 5 on the North axis, 1 train out of 2 on the East axis, 2 trains out of 5 on the Atlantic axis, 1 train out of 2 on the South East axis and 1 train out of 10 for trips from province to province. On the OUIGOs, 50% of the trains will be cancelled.
On the TER side, traffic is also “very strongly disturbed”, with 2 trains out of 5 on average. Intercités travelers will only be able to count on 1 train out of 4 on average. Internationally, major disruptions are also to be expected, with in particular 2 trains out of 3 in circulation on the Eurostar lines, 3 trains out of 5 on the Thalys, 1 train out of 3 for the France-Italy links, and 2 trains out of 5 on the France Germany and France Switzerland links (TGV Lyria).
Traffic should remain disrupted during the weekend, “similar to Friday”, specifies the SNCF again without further details for the moment.
Canceled flights and delays
There should be 20% fewer flights this Friday at Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle airport and 30% fewer at Paris-Orly, but also Beauvais, Bordeaux, Lille, Lyon, Nantes, Marseille, Montpellier, Nice and Toulouse. Despite these preventive measures, disruptions and delays are to be expected.
The General Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGAC) has also asked airlines tocancel 20% of their scheduled flights on Saturday and Sunday. This reduction in the flight program will concern Orly, Marseille, Nantes, Toulouse and Bordeaux on Saturday, while on Sunday, only Orly, Marseille and Toulouse will be affected, the administration said in a press release, reflecting an improvement in the situation for air passengers. since the start of this mobilization sequence on Tuesday.
A little less hassle in the Paris metro, but…
The forecasts communicated by the RATP foresee a marked improvement the situation: traffic will be much less disrupted this Friday, with almost normal or even normal traffic on all metro lines. It should be the same for this Saturday, March 11.
Note also that line 9 of the metro will be completely closed on Sunday, as will line 14, the same day until 4 p.m. The circulation of Transilien and RER will also be affected by maintenance works.
Traffic is normal on the entire bus and tram network. It will be more complicated on certain lines of the Transilien network, operated by SNCF Voyageurs.
In addition, traffic remains disrupted on the RER B, with an average of 1 train out of 2 at peak times and 2 trains out of 3 at off-peak times. The interconnection at Gare du Nord is interrupted. Traffic will be almost normal on the RER A, with 3 trains out of 4.
Difficulties are also to be expected on the RER E with 1 train out of 2, on the RER C with 1 train out of 3 and on the RER D with only 1 train out of 5 on average (no train between Châtelet-les-Halles and Paris Lyon station). On the latter, trains run only at peak times between Châtelet-les-Halles and Goussainville, between Paris Gare de Lyon and Melun/Corbelle-Essonnes via Evry-Courcouronnes, and between Corbeil-Essonnes and Malesherbes.
Most refineries still blocked
The strike was lifted and fuel shipments resumed on Thursday at Esso-ExxonMobil’s Normandy refinery in Port-Jérôme-Gravenchon, one of two major refineries near Le Havre, and the first to resume work. But everywhere else, the strike continues in the TotalEnergies refineries of La Mède, Donges, Normandy, Feyzin and at the Flandres depot. The strike was also renewed for 24 hours at the Fos-sur-Mer (Esso-ExxonMobil) and Lavera (Petroineos) refineries.
Of 200 fuel depots, five were blocked compared to nine at the start of the week. Enough to make Olivier Gantois, president of Ufip, which represents oil companies, say that there is “no supply problem” and that “the situation is improving”.
In chemicals, Arkema said it still had a plant shut down on Thursday, in Saint-Auban (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence), a key site where strikers stopped the ethylene compressor on which all factories depend. Eastern petrochemical pipeline which may soon run out of ethylene, according to the CGT: Rhône Valley, Lyon, Jura to the Carling chemical platform in Moselle.
A noticeable drop in electricity production
The drop in power over the entire production fleet at 3 p.m. Thursday reached 12,740 MW, the equivalent of a dozen nuclear reactors, EDF said. RTE had to send a request to stop production reductions to pass the morning peak demand. But at this stage, no voluntary cut is planned by the network.
However, hundreds of angry gas and electricity officials symbolically cut power at midday near the Stade de France and the Olympic Village construction site in Saint Denis. Later in the afternoon, the distributor Enedis however denied some of these announcements but confirmed “cuts” in the commercial and residential area around the stadium, as well as on the site of the future Olympic village. Other actions are planned by the unions.
The gas network in slow motion
The four French LNG terminals which receive imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) are shut down, and thirteen out of 14 storage sites – but the last is a small site without employees – are blocked.
Fabrice Coudour, federal secretary of the FNME-CGT union, raises the threat of “a possible gas shortage” within a few days. “Determination is all the more intact as this passage of article 7 in the Senate (noting the postponement of the retirement age to 64) reinforces the anger a little ”, he assures.
Piling up of trash cans
“It’s ugly and it smells bad. In Paris, garbage cans are piling up in certain arrondis*****ts, with 3,700 tons of uncollected waste on Thursday, according to the town hall. And to emphasize that “three Syctom sites (the household waste treatment union in Paris and a large part of its suburbs) are subject to blockages, which impacts the entire collection”. Since the incineration plants of Ivry-sur-Seine, Issy-les-Moulineaux and Saint-Ouen have been shut down, Syctom has been diverting the waste collected to transfer centers since Monday in order to redirect it to treatment centers or outdoor storage.
The social movement should continue at least until Friday.
