French rail strike planned for May 13
 

Various rail unions are planning "un gryve" for that date. It's part of the protests about proposed changes in retirement benefits.

The effective dates according to the French Yahoo! news will be from monday 12 may 20h00 au wednesday 14 may 08h00.

http://fr.news.yahoo.com/030425/85/35y7y.html

That was "greve" -- the system didn't like my accents :(

The rail unions frequently strike in France. I have made 3 trips to Paris during the past few years, and during every trip there was a train strike. My advice to anyone traveling to Europe (especially France) is to always be prepared with alternate travel plans that do not involve taking trains.

I'm flying back to the US on May 14th, will the traffic to the airport be insane because of the strike?

It still amazes me at the frequency the French strike. As if 35 hour work weeks and massive amounts of holiday are not enough.

Must be their culture....

it's just a matter of being able to keep 35 hours and massives amount of holidays.

as for backup plans, Eurolines is a bus company like greyhound.

Celine

I will be arriving in Paris on the 13th of May in the A.M.,already have my TGV tiket to Avignon, with a car rental waiting in Avignon. I would really like to know if this train strike is going to happen so I can make alternate travel plans.I tried finding out more information, but so far your posting is the only clue I had about a potential train strike. Who can confirm this type of thing. Thanks

If I were you, I'd call the car rental company and have an alternative available -- for a possible pick up at the airport. It looks like we are avoiding this potential situation ourselves only by a week.

Colombo,
For information on current or scheduled strikes in France, including overseas departments, check www.infogreves.com.

I can't tell you how grateful I am to have found this site. Thanks to you I was able to do more research and find out how widespread this strike is going to be. Because I was forewarned, I have changed my train reservation to May 14th,and notified the hotel and car rental company in Avignon that I'll be a day late. My husband and I will spend the 13th in Paris instead (not too hard to take) even though it will cut our trip to Provence short a day. I'm glad we didn't just arrive at CDG airport on the 13th and have to deal with the disruption on the spot. It's really great how people want to share their info with others. Thanks again for all your help.

Does anybody know about the status of more strikes scheduled for May 19 and 20? This is according to an article at CNN.com.

Also, does anybody know how this may affect plane departures? I'm scheduled to be flying out of Paris on the 20th with American Airlines.

Karmasalad< Can you tell me exactly where this article is. I have searched the cnn site and can't find it. We are flying to France on the 20th.

Yes, I'd be interested in the supposedly planned strikes for the 19th and 20th as well.

I think the supposed strike continuation on the 19th/20th is, thus far, unsubstantiated. None of the many news reports about today's strike mention continuations on those later dates including the article posted on the CNN website.

The latest now seems to be another protest for May 25th!