Railway strike is unlikely to stop reforms

FRENCH railway traffic was disrupted yesterday as trade unions protested against the government's long overdue reform of the national railway network (SNCF)

Half of all train drivers and about one third of railway workers observed a strike, which was nonetheless regarded as a last gasp before the reform is passed by the National Assembly next month.

At the end of 1995, the proposed re evaluation of railway workers' pensions led to a month long strike that paralysed the country. The government dropped attempts to change pensions. It has consulted the unions repeatedly on the reform law. "The debate is over," the Transport Minister, Mr Bernard Pons, said.

It was easier for the unions to mobilise employees in defence of benefits than it has been to motivate them against the reform plan, especially when the new law fulfils one of the union's main demands.

Two thirds of the railway's colossal £25 billion debt is to be assumed by a new public company, the Reseau Ferre de France, which will become the owner of the railway's infrastructure and financier of unfinished projects like the TGV Mediterranee and the TGV Est.

It was the high prestige Train a Grande Vitesse (TGV) network that most indebted the SNCF. The TGV holds the world record for rail speed, 515 k.p.h.

The reform plan fulfils a 1991 EU directive which recommended separate accountancy for the infrastructure and operational sides of European railway systems. It constitutes retroactive recognition by the French government that it was unfair to require the SNCF to finance new rail lines, when the state did not ask transport companies to finance highways.

Although the three unions which called yesterday's strike the CGT, CFDT and Sud Rail represent nearly three quarters of all railway workers, the Communist CGT (representing half of all railway workers) has been only lukewarm in its opposition to the reform.

The CFDT opposes splitting up the railway because it believes this will invite European competition. The French government opposes moves by Brussels to introduce free competition on railway networks.