No health pass, no TGV.
SNCF will begin to check the health passes of TGV and Intercity passengers "on the day the law comes into force", that is to say on August 9, the CEO of the public group, Jean-Pierre Farandou, said on Thursday.
“The new way of taking a TGV or an Intercités, as soon as the law is promulgated (…), is a ticket, a mask, a health pass,” he summed up.
The checks, as had already been announced, will not affect all travel: “We said that we would carry out massive checks, everywhere and all the time.
That does not necessarily mean exhaustive, because we simply do not know how to do it, ”explained Jean-Pierre Farandou.
The Minister of Transport, Jean-Baptiste Djebbari, for his part clarified that travelers whose PCR test is positive for Covid-19 will be able to benefit from a refund of their train tickets.
Controls mainly at large stations
Pass controls will be carried out "rather on the ground, not far from the boarding gates when there are any". "There may also be checks on board (...) with brigades of controllers reinforced by agents of the Suge (Rail Security, Editor's note) and even checks on arrival", possibly with the support of the forces of order, detailed the leader. Large stations will be particularly affected by controls, since they represent 70% of TGV traffic.
Jean-Pierre Farandou did not wish to react to threats of a strike call from the SUD-Rail union, which opposes any reclassifications or suspensions of controllers who do not have a health pass from August 30.
“We quickly indicated to the SNCF that with us, there would be no layoffs.
If the controllers, in a personal capacity, refused to have a health pass, they would be offered to go on TER in the provinces or in the Transilien in Île-de-France, ”noted the CEO.
These are routes where the health pass is not compulsory.
“We have of course in parallel a whole plan to accelerate the vaccination of the agents who wish it”, he indicated.
“We mobilized all our medical centers which will be provided with doses of vaccines to allow volunteer railway workers to be vaccinated during the month of August.
"
