'Black Monday' in Paris: Workers face more transport chaos on fifth day of strikes

Ongoing strikes against pension reform are still badly hitting trains services across the country - where around 15 percent of normal services are running - and seen public transport severely disrupted in Paris.

Ten of the city's 16 Metro lines were not running at all while another four others were only offering a limited service.

READ ALSO December strikes in France - expect major disruption that could last until the New Year

To add to the commuter misery, line 4 - which had been scheduled to run a rush-hour only service - experienced technical problems early on Monday morning.

 

City transport bossed RATP had declared the weekend a 'sacrifice' with very services running so they could concentrate on commuter services on Monday, which were expected to be badly stretched as many Parisians who had taken holiday or worked from home over the first days of the strike returned to work.

 Over the weekend RATP issued several appeals to commuters to only use suburban RER and Transilien services if absolutely necessary.

 

But torrential rain on Monday morning may have dissuaded would-be cyclists.

By 8.30am 600km of traffic jams were being reported in the greater Paris Île de France area.

 

[Mouvement Social] ⚠️ Estimations pour lundi 9 décembre : prévoir un trafic extrêmement perturbé sur les réseaux #Métro et #RER. Pour le #bus et le #tram, le trafic sera également perturbé. Toutes les précisions seront données demain à 17h sur le site https://t.co/7OhMS4j8Sg ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/NJZirOfmEM

— Service client RATP (@ClientsRATP) December 7, 2019

 

More information is provided in English on the RATP site.

The ongoing strike action is in protest over plans by French president Emannuel Macron to reform the pension system, a change that unions fears will see workers have to work later and left with smaller pension pots.

READ ALSO 'We don't have a choice' - French unions explain why they have brought the country to a standstill

Unions have called for another day of mass walk-outs and protests on Tuesday, ahead of the government revealing more detail of the reform - which is still at the consultation stage - on Wednesday.

 

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