The threat was carried out.
Train controllers are on strike from this Friday and for the entire weekend, during the school holidays.
The SUD Rail union predicts “between 70 and 80%” of strikers on certain parts of the TGV network.
According to SNCF Voyageurs, one TGV Inoui and as many Intercités and OuiGo in two must circulate throughout the territory, priority being given to the Alps for ski holidays.
Users are the first to be harmed by these train cancellations.
If some find themselves without a solution, others are forced to turn to more polluting modes of transport such as planes or cars, despite their ecological convictions.
Forced to fly
This is the case of Tom, 26, who organized a train journey from Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine) to Milan, taking advantage of the Stade Rennais match against the Italian team in the Europa League this Thursday, February 15.
“Sunday, for the return, I had to do Milan-Zurich, then Zurich-Paris and Paris-Rennes by train,” explains Tom.
I learned on Wednesday that the Zurich-Paris and Paris-Rennes trains were canceled.
» Information that he discovered almost by chance when consulting his SNCF Connect application and which would only be officially confirmed to him several hours later by the company.
For lack of alternative solutions, the Rennais fell back on the plane to return from Milan to Paris, then a bus to finish his journey to Ille-et-Vilaine.
“It was the first time that I favored this mode of transport for ecological reasons,” he confides.
The outward journey is very good, but the return journey a little less so.
» If, in the future, he plans to try the experience again, he remains cooled by this failure.
Also readSNCF: how much do controllers who plan to strike this weekend earn?
Sylvain, a 53-year-old Parisian, says he is “furious with the SNCF”.
“I try to take the train as soon as possible,” assures the person who regularly travels by train.
This time, this sales executive had to leave the capital for a weekend in Saint-Malo (Ille-et-Vilaine) with his companion.
Unfortunately for him, his train scheduled for this Friday was canceled.
“I have no choice but to fall back on the car,” he adds.
The journey time therefore drops from around two hours to 5.5 hours.
“And my carbon footprint is just execrable.
It’s terrible,” he laments.
Sylvain did not consider taking the plane because of the destination.
But if he had gone somewhere else, that would have been an option.
“I take the train a lot, and I see that the service is declining,” adds the one who travels as much as possible by bike in Paris.
As a result, he is thinking of buying a car in the coming months, despite his “ecological sensitivity which remains unchanged”.
“I feel like I’m being forced”
For Faustine, 23, falling back on the plane is not a choice of the heart.
“I have to go from Strasbourg to Nice and taking the plane bothers me,” says the woman who planned to meet her grandmother for a weekend on the Côte d'Azur.
Originally, Faustine had to take a night train, lasting fifteen hours compared to less than two hours for the plane.
“I was ready to make an effort,” breathes the one who always favors the train “for ecological reasons”.
Faustine says she “understands the demands of the strikers”, but she reaches a “saturation point”.
“It’s not the first time this has happened to me.
For such long distances, it’s the last time I take the train,” she adds.
“I'm angry because I feel like I'm being forced.
My ecological convictions are there, but I also have a personal life which has been turned upside down by the strike.
» This young woman says she also thought about taking a car.
“For such a distance, over a weekend, it was too long,” she decided.
VIDEO.
Strike at SNCF: “It’s incomprehensible”, says the CEO of SNCF Voyageurs
Nicolas also tries to favor rail out of environmental awareness, although his work as a mathematics researcher requires him to make numerous trips abroad.
And too bad if he has to multiply his travel time by four.
“Last year, I had to pass an interview in Barcelona even though I was living in Genoa in Italy at the time.
My train journey took me through Paris, from where I had to leave for Barcelona,” he relates.
Surprised by an SNCF strike in Paris, this thirty-year-old had to resort to a disaster flight from Genoa to Barcelona.
“This kind of situation saddens me because I have to take the plane even though I don’t want to,” says the young man who now lives in Paris and who has to leave for Amsterdam on Sunday.
“I don’t know if my train will leave,” he whispers.