Traffic in the Paris metro will be severely disrupted on Friday, February 18, due to a strike by RATP employees linked to wages, with eight metro lines closed and six others partially open only during rush hours.
Traffic will be interrupted all day on lines 2, 3 bis, 5, 7 bis, 8, 10, 11 and 12, the public company warned in its traffic forecasts published on Wednesday. Lines 3, 4, 6, 7, 9 and 13 will only be open during peak hours (6:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.; 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.) with traffic ranging from one in two trains to one in four trains. Only lines 1 and 14 will run normally, but the RATP advises travelers to postpone their trips due to the “risk of saturation”.
[Mouvement Social] ⚠️ Traffic will be severely disrupted on #RATP lines this Friday, February 18. We invite you… https://t.co/roQvAaBveq
Traffic will also be very disrupted on lines A and B of the RER: on the RER A, one out of two trains will run at peak times and one out of three trains at off-peak times. The interconnection will be maintained at Nanterre-Préfecture. On the RER B, one train out of two during peak hours and one train out of three during off-peak hours. The interconnection will be interrupted at Gare-du-Nord.
On the bus and tram lines, traffic is also expected to be difficult: on average, one out of three trams will run with disparities depending on the line, as well as two out of three buses “with variations depending on the sector and possibly going as far as the closure of a few lines”.
Persistent “disagreement” over wages
The RATP group “apologizes for the planned conditions of carriage”, he wrote in his press release. The unions of the Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens are calling for a stoppage of work to demand a rise in wages. On Monday, management had already reported a ” disagreement “ persistent with the unions on this issue of wages in the framework of the mandatory annual negotiations (NAO).
The latter have called for a united strike to protest against the management’s proposed salary increase which, according to them, amounts to 0.4%. A figure disputed by the RATP which evokes an average increase of 2.7% with 1.8% for advancement and seniority, 0.5% for categorical measures and 0.4% for transverse measures which therefore concern all employees.
The management also dangles a profit-sharing that “could be higher than previous years” which amounted to 1,000 euros net on average. For its part, the CGT is asking for a 3% increase per year over the next three years. The call to strike is followed by all the representative organizations (CGT, UNSA, FO and CFE-CGC) as well as almost all the other organizations (Solidaires and La Base). A round of negotiations within the framework of these NAO must precisely be held on Friday, the day of the strike.