National railway strike in France is on…again

Source: RailFreight
Date: 31st January 2023

Workers of the French state railway utility SNCF are on strike. The strike started on Monday 30 January at 7 pm local time and runs until Wednesday, 1 February 6 am. It is expected to have a severe impact on rail operations, including rail freight.

Industrial action has been called by labour unions representing a broad range of public and private sector staff to protest against state pension reform which will extend the statutory retirement age from 62 to 64.

It is the second strike in less than a fortnight as unions seek to put pressure on the government to back down. The previous stoppage on January 19 saw an estimated 1 million people stage demonstrations across the country in opposition to the reform.

Heavy impact
“We are expecting to be heavily impacted by this strike along with all rail freight operators,” the sales and marketing director at SNCF subsidiary, VIIA, told Railfreight.com. He added that the company was waiting to see whether there will be a call to prolong the strike beyond February 1.

Viia operates an extensive weekly programme of intermodal services, which comprises Bettembourg (Luxembourg)-Le Boulou (Perpignan) with 22 round trips; Bettebourg-Barcelona (5 round trips); Calais-Le Boulou (10 round trips); Calais-Macon (5 round-trips); Sète-Calais( 3 round-trips); and Sète-Paris (3 round-trips).

The strike is also set to hit private rail freight operators as France’s rail network manager is staffed by SNCF Réseau personnel. Dock workers are also supporting the industrial action, which means rail freight shipments handled at French ports could also be affected.

NEOLink cooperated with our order processing system. He did not replace it or force solutions. Logfret did it better than other companies on the market – it adapted its system to ours. Logfret didn’t come to us saying, “We have this solution, and you either use it or we won’t cooperate.

Procurement Director

Pumps Manufacturer

We made a huge improvement in global visibility with a global platform—anyone can log into NEOLink and look at a shipment anytime, anywhere in the world. We wanted a freight forwarder with a good technology platform, which could handle the complexities of our business and we found NEOLink!

A global leader in performance materials and specialty chemicals

My suppliers have less or zero experience with international logistics. Thus, not able to create proper documentation which leads to tremendous delay. Thanks to Logfret who provide training to all suppliers and work with us to build up a consolidation hub to reduce transportation costs significantly.

One of the world’s leading designers, manufacturers and distributors of ride control products