Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

TRAVEL NEWS

France and Germany announce 60,000 free train tickets this summer

Young people across France and Germany may be able to benefit from free rail tickets this summer, part of a joint initiative to strengthen ties between the two countries.

Published: 23 January 2023 12:08 CET
France and Germany announce 60,000 free train tickets this summer
A 2019 photo at the Gare de l'Est railway station in Paris showing a French SNCF's INOUI high speed TGV train and a Deutsche Bahn (DB) ICE high speed train. (Photo by ERIC PIERMONT / AFP)

French and Germany transport ministers announced in a joint press release that 60,000 free train tickets would be made available to young people to help facilitate exchange between the two countries this summer.

The release did not specify the age restrictions, but the ‘young person’s railcard’ schemes in France are available to people under 26.

French and German transport ministers Clément Beaune and Volker Wissing announced that “60,000 tickets will be made available free of charge, according to terms and conditions which will be specified shortly”.

The scheme will be supported financially by both countries’ national rail service – SNCF for France, and Deutsche Bahn for Germany. French media reported that tickets will be allocated through a draw.

The goal of the free ticket plan, which is set to be put into place during the summer of 2023, is to encourage young people to travel between the two countries, and to build up more cultural exchange between France and Germany. 

It was announced to coincide with the 60th anniversary of France and Germany signing of the Élysée Treaty – which helped to build bilateral cooperation between the former adversaries.

The two heads of state – German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron, met in Paris on Sunday to mark the occasion.

READ MORE: France, Germany firm up ties as European ‘driving force’

Additionally, the German transport minister told French daily Libération that the project was also intended to fight against climate change, by incentivising rail travel. 

“The plan aims to achieve our climate objectives for the transport sector. We need to convince even more people to travel by train. To do this, we have to offer attractive offers,” Wissing said.

Germany has already announced other schemes to encourage rail travel, such as the implementation of the €49 monthly rail pass.

READ MORE: OPINION: Why Germany’s €49 travel ticket is far better than the previous €9 ticket

The French transport ministry also highlighted that the free ticket scheme is not the only rail service plan to better connect the two countries. The Paris to Berlin high speed TGV train is set to be launched in 2024, and by late 2023 (or early 2024) the night train connecting the two cities will make its return.

READ MORE: Planes, trains, and ferries: The new international travel routes from France in 2023

Travellers can also take advantage of other high-speed lines connecting the two countries, such as the high speed direct line that already connects Paris to Munich. 

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

TRAVEL NEWS

Rail sabotage: What to expect if you’re travelling in France this weekend

France's rail network was on Friday hit with an apparently coordinated series of arson attacks with rail bosses saying disruption will continue over the weekend. Here's a look at the latest, plus updates on road and air travel.

Published: 26 July 2024 16:08 CEST
Rail sabotage: What to expect if you’re travelling in France this weekend

Friday saw enormous disruption on the railways after a series of arson attacks on France’s key high-speed rail lines – find the latest here.

SNCF said that the travel plans of at least 800,000 passengers have been disrupted on Friday alone, while the transport minister announced that up to 50 percent of services on affected lines would have to be cancelled.

A quarter of Eurostar services between Paris and London were cancelled on Friday.

And the disruption is set to continue over the weekend – the arson attacks involved setting fire to “conduits carrying multiple (fibre-optic) cables” that relay “safety information for drivers” or control the motors for points that change rails.

SNCF’s CEO said: “There’s a huge number of bundled cables. We have to repair them one by one, it’s a manual operation” requiring “hundreds of workers”.

SNCF says services are expected to return to normal by Monday on most lines, but disruption will continue over the weekend.

Anyone planning to travel should check the latest on the SNCF information site here, or download the SNCF Connect app.

On Friday two in three trains were being cancelled on certain lines, and cancellations are likely to continue over the weekend. Services could also be rescheduled or delayed.

The disruption is mostly affecting the high-speed TGV routes in and out of Paris. Local lines are not directly affected but may suffer knock-on disruption.

West and south-west France – this is the most severely affected with no trains out of Gare Montparnasse at all on Friday morning.

Services restarted in the afternoon but only with around a third of the normal trains. Cancellations will continue but at least some services will run on this route over the weekend – although passengers who can postpone their journey are advised to do so. Those services that do run are expected to be very busy.

This affects services to the south-west including Bordeaux and Toulouse, and also the west including Brittany and Normandy lines.

East – trains between Paris and Lille and Paris and Arras are severely disrupted, including the Eurostar which uses the Paris-Lille high-speed tracks.

There are fewer cancellations on this line as trains are being diverted onto the slower local lines, although this is extending journey times by around two hours. On Friday a quarter of Eurostar services between London and Paris were cancelled.

South-east – the TGV Sud-Est axis, running between Paris and Lyon and onwards to Switzerland and Italy was not affected by the sabotage as an arson attack in this area was foiled. Services are running largely as normal with some knock-on disruption.

READ ALSO ‘Sabotage’ on French rail network before Olympics: What we know

Paris public transport is not affected by the sabotage although some services in the city centre are closed or diverted due to Olympics security protocols – more details here.

Roads

Sadly, things might not be much better on France’s roads this weekend – and the rail disruption seems certain only to make an already difficult travel weekend even worse. The French ride-share app BlaBlaCar said it had seen an 88 percent increase in bookings on Friday as people scrambled for an alternative to the train.

This weekend is France’s traditional ‘cross-over’ weekend for 2024. The chassé-croisé happens each year during the final weekend in July, is the annual moment when July holidaymakers start to return home while the August holidaymakers head off for their big summer getaways.

France’s traffic watchdog, Bison Futé, predicted that traffic will be heavy on Friday, with extremely difficult traffic conditions on the roads on Saturday, while Sunday will be slightly calmer.

READ ALSO Traffic: What to expect during the 2024 ‘chassé-croisé’ weekend in France 

Airports

The worst of the global IT outage appears to be over, but no one’s even going to attempt to deny that French airports are very busy at this time of year – it’s the world’s most popular tourist destination at the most popular tourist time of the year.

And airports in the Paris region, in particular, are gearing up for an especially busy period, with thousands of Olympic Games fans expected over the next couple of weeks.

From 6.30pm until 12 midnight (CET) on Friday, July 26th, a no-fly zone will be in place within a 150km radius of the French capital for the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games.

This will mean flights will be interrupted at Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle (CDG), Orly airports, and Beauvais airports – this should have little effect on travel plans as airlines have adapted their schedules, having been notified of the no-fly security perimeter in 2023.

Flight resume as normal at 00.01am on Saturday and there are no expected disruptions over the weekend.

SHOW COMMENTS