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LATEST: French unions announce end of Channel tunnel strike

French unions have announced the end of their wildcat strike that blocked all rail traffic between France and the UK on Thursday leading to cancellations of Eurostar and Le Shuttle services.

Published: 21 December 2023 15:10 CET
Updated: 21 December 2023 19:45 CET
LATEST: French unions announce end of Channel tunnel strike
This photograph taken on December 21, 2023, shows cars lining up at the entrance of the English Channel Tunnel during a strike led by Eurotunnel employees in Calais, northern France. - . (Photo by Bernard BARRON / AFP)

The surprise strike at Eurotunnel operator Getlink blocked Eurostar trains as well as Eurotunnel Le Shuttle trains carrying trucks and cars as the peak holiday travel season got underway.

In all some 30 Eurostar trains were cancelled on Thursday.

The tunnel was set to reopen on Thursday evening with Le Shuttle services between Calais and Folkstone set to resume on Thursday evening. Eurostar services were set to start running again on Friday morning. It wasn’t clear what the knock on effects from the strike action would be for travel over the coming days.

“The crisis Eurotunnel industrial action is coming to an end… Channel tunnel activity will resume this evening,” said union delegate Franck Herent, citing negotiations with management that “bore results that satisfy us”.

One union source told Le Parisien newspaper: “Everyone is going back to work.”

Announcing the end of the strike French MP Alexandre Holroyd thanked French Transport Minister Clement Beaune for his “quick action and intervention to resolve the situation”.

LATEST: How long will the Channel Tunnel be closed for?

The strike was related to a dispute over end of year bonuses for staff.

Getlink said French “trade unions rejected a bonus of €1,000 end-of-year bonus announced by management and have called for a strike to demand it be tripled.”

A joint statement from the six French unions representing Getlink staff (FO, CGT, Sud-Rail, CFE-CGC, CFDT and SACDC) said: “This strong mobilisation comes as no surprise.

France-UK Christmas travel – what are the alternatives?

“For several months now, all the trade unions have been alerting general management to the terrible deterioration in the social climate.”

Getlink in July reported record operating profits of €159 million. 

Unions had met with bosses on Thursday afternoon after launching the strike that took everyone by surprise.

French Transport Minister Clement Beaune described the closure as “unacceptable” and demanded an immediate end to strike action.

“I call on everyone to be responsible and ensure good conditions for traffic and holiday departures,” he said.

Eurostar told passengers that is has no information on whether Friday services will be running. It advised those travelling to make alternative plans.

Le Shuttle which runs car and freight trains through the tunnel had also advised passengers to make alternative travel arrangements, which caused frustration for many.

One passenger stuck in queues to get across the Channel tweeted: “How are we meant to get out of these queues without any coordination from you so that we can make alternative transport arrangements?”

The announcement of the cancellation of train services sparked dismay in train stations, with people scrambling to change their reservations on their phone.

“We’ve been sitting here at Calais for 3.5 hours,” said one Twitter uses named Andrew. “Totally shitty way to do industrial action by Eurotunnel staff. You can put pressure on your employer without screwing over families stuck in cars, trying to get home for Christmas without any warning.”

“So travelling back now and now literally five minutes ago, we’ve got an email to say that Eurotunnel staff are going on strike and it looks like we can’t get a train today,” said Nick, 45, as he was trying to return to Britain from the northern French city of Lille.

He said the email he received gave him little hope of making it back to London today.

“They’ve told us that because it’s December, it’s going to be really difficult to now get a booking with the limited space.”

There were reports of Eurotunnel staff handing out ferry tickets for passengers unable to take the train at Folkestone. 

Eurostar employees meanwhile announced at the Gare du Nord station in Paris on a megaphone that all trains for the rest of the day were cancelled.

At Calais in northern France, long queues of vehicles of more than a kilometre formed at the entrance to the French terminal where cars and trucks board trains to reach the English port of Folkestone on the other side of the Channel.

The chaos at the Port of Dover had a knock on effect on the surrounding roads, and police initiated the ’emergency protocol’ on the M20 motorway.

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STRIKES

Paris garbage collectors strike as city readies for Olympics

Paris garbage collectors went on strike on Tuesday, two-and-a-half months before the French capital is due to host the Summer Olympic Games.

Published: 15 May 2024 09:44 CEST
Paris garbage collectors strike as city readies for Olympics

Paris rubbish collectors had warned of possible strikes over the summer, raising the spectre of piles of trash roasting in summer heat on the streets as hordes of athletes and tourists descend on the City of Light.

ANALYSIS: How likely is strike chaos during the Paris Olympics?

Unions and City Hall differed on how many of the collectors had walked off the job on Tuesday.

Paris city hall said that 16 percent of staff, or one in six, were striking.

“Collection services were little affected today,” a City Hall official told AFP, without providing further details.

But the CGT union branch that represents garbage collectors, hailed a “strong” mobilisation effort, saying that 70-90 percent of staff, depending on the arrondissement, had walked off the job.

CGT said that some 400 striking workers had “occupied” the building housing city hall’s human resources department on Tuesday morning.

City Hall put the number at 100 and said they had left by 12 noon.

CGT had warned that walkouts would occur on several days in May and then continue from July 1st to September 8th.

Summer Olympics will run in Paris from July 26th until August 11th, and the Paralympic Games from August 28th to September 8th.

Refuse workers in the Paris region are demanding an extra €400 per month and a one-off €1,900 bonus for those working during the Olympics, when French workers traditionally take time off for the summer holidays.

The mayor’s office had previously told AFP that it would extend bonuses of between €600 and €1,900 that it had already announced for workers contributing to the Olympics effort to refuse collectors.

The mayor of Paris’s 17th arrondissement, Geoffroy Boulard, said the strike was “irresponsible”.

“To take hostage not only Parisians but also tourists and visitors is also an attack on France’s world image,” he said.

In March last year, a three-week strike by rubbish collectors against unpopular pensions reform saw more than 10,000 tonnes of waste piled in Paris streets at its height.

Images of the heaps of trash, some mounting several metres high, were seen around the world.

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