FRANCE

Massive public transit strike over pension reforms paralyses Paris

With 10 metro lines closed and interruptions to bus and RER train lines, public transport in Paris was “extremely disrupted” on Friday.

Issued on: 12/09/2019 - 12:07Modified: 13/09/2019 - 22:14

Martin Bureau, AFP | A couple rides an electric scooter in Paris on September 13, 2019, during a one-day strike of Paris public transports operator RATP employees over French government's plan to overhaul the country's retirement system.

Text by: FRANCE 24 Follow

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For up-to-date information on how public transport is running in Paris, click here

Most commuters in and around Paris found themselves planning alternate routes to work on Friday. Transport unions organised a major walk-out in protest against pension reforms. It is the biggest mobilisation at the state-owned transport system Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens (RATP) since a similar strike in October 2007.

Here are the latest details:

Ten metro lines will be closed for the full day. There will be no trains at all on lines 2, 3, 3bis, 5, 6, 7bis, 10, 11, 12 and 13.
Metro lines 4, 7 and 8 will run one metro out of every three.
On metro line 9, there will be one train out of four.
For metro lines 1 and 14, traffic will be normal but “with the risk of saturation”, RATP warns.
On RER lines A and B, traffic will be “extremely disrupted”, with trains running “only during peak hours” and stations will be “closed outside these hours”. At peak times, only one out of three RER A trains and one out of five RER B trains are scheduled (with interrupted interconnection with SNCF at Gare du Nord).
RER C is run by Transilien SNCF and will have a normal schedule.
People hoping to take the bus or tram, will also face delays. According to RATP, there will be on average one in three buses in circulation throughout the Paris network.
On tram lines T1, T2, T3a, T6, T7 and T8, there will be no trams at all during off-peak hours (09.00 – 17.20) and only one in three trams will be running during peak hours.
Tram lines T3bis and T5 will run every second tram throughout the day.

Aware of the serious disruption generated by this strike, RATP set up a partnership system with alternate options.

These include RATP paying for its customers to have 30 free minutes on electric scooters Cityscoot. RATP is also offering two 15-minute trips for Ile-de-France residents on Jump, an electric bicycle and scooter service. All promotional offers and codes can be found on the RATP website.