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LATEST: What services are running during Paris transport strikes?

Unions have called for a coordinated and unlimited strike in Paris, starting on Friday, in an ongoing dispute over pay. Here's how services will be affected.

Published: 24 March 2022 17:21 CET
LATEST: What services are running during Paris transport strikes?
Paris transport staff have called a strike. Photo by Thomas SAMSON / AFP

Unions have representing workers on the city’s RATP transport network are embroiled in a dispute on pay, and have called a strike. They previously held a one-day strike on February 18th, but this time there is no end date to the industrial action.

French law obliges workers in essential industry such as transport to give 48 hours’ notice of their intention to strike. Transport bosses then use this information to produce revised timetables of the services they will be able to run on strike days.

Here is the latest information for Friday, March 25th, with disruption heavily concentrated on the city’s bus and tram lines.

Metro

Lines 1, 3bis, 4, 5, 6, 7bis, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 14 will be running as normal.

Lines 2, 3, 7 and 13 have what RATP describes as ‘light disruption’ – all stations are open and trains are running but there might be a slightly longer gap than normal between services – 9 in 10 trains are running.

Line 8 – full line open, 8 trains in 10 are running.

Bus

Across the city, 30 percent of bus services will not be running at all. The rest of the lines will only be running half of their normal services.

Tram 

Services all along the tram network will be heavily disrupted, but only one line – Line 8 – won’t be running at all.

The rest of the lines will be running but with limited services. Those that do run are expected to be extremely crowded, especially during rush hours.

T1 – running between 6am and 11am and 3pm and 8pm. Trams every 10 minutes

T2 – running between 6am and 10pm, trams every 10 minutes during rush hour and every 20 minutes the rest of the day

T3a – running between 6am and 11am and 4.30 and 8.30pm. Trams every 6 minutes

T3b – running between 6.30am and 10am, 4.30pm and 8pm, only between Porte de Versailles and Porte de Pantin. Trams every 6 minutes

T5 – running between 5.30am and 10am only. Trams every 10 minutes

T6 – running between 6.30am and 9pm, trams every 10 minutes during rush hour and every 25 minutes the rest of the day

T7 – running between 6.30am and 12 noon and 3.30pm and 10.30pm. Trams every 14 minutes 

RER 

Only RER lines B – which connects Paris to Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports – and A are affected, the other RER lines are run by SNCF so are not affected by the strike action.

RATP says that normal services will be maintained on both lines A and B.

Transilien

The Transilien train service is also run by SNCF so is therefore not affected. 

You can find full information and updates HERE.

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PARIS

‘Come back’: Champs-Elysees wants to win over Parisians

The Champs-Elysees, the iconic avenue sweeping through central Paris dotted with cafes and shops, connects the Place de la Concorde in the east with the Arc de Triomphe in the west in a single, breathtakingly straight line.

Published: 30 May 2024 08:37 CEST
'Come back': Champs-Elysees wants to win over Parisians

But one thing seems to be missing amid the throngs of tourists — Parisians themselves.

A true Parisian is rare on the Champs-Elysees, and as one local said, that is not really surprising.

“There’s no place for us — no garden, nowhere to sit,” Xavier LeBrun, 35, told AFP as he watched tourists stream past on the almost two-kilometre avenue during his cigarette break.

The Champs-Elysees is “where Parisians cross to get from one place to another, and that’s it”, he said.

A top tourist attraction, locals have gradually abandoned the Champs-Elysees over concerns that it is too noisy, dirty and expensive, with luxury brands replacing smaller, independent shops.

But that could change if a committee, eager to make the Champs-Elysees attractive to Parisians again, can make its voice heard.

‘Everyone was fleeing’

After five years of work the “Champs-Elysees Committee”, endowed with a budget of €5 million, this week listed 150 proposals including adding green spaces, reducing pollution, and organising cultural events to “revive” the famed avenue.

This handout photo obtained on May 27, 2024 courtesy of PCA-STREAM shows a computer-generated image of an aerial view of the Champs-Elysees district, with the Arc de Triomphe seen rear, transformed by the “Re-enchanting the Champs-Elysees” urban project in Paris. (Photo by PCA-STREAM / AFP)

The starting point for the Champs-Elysees Committee, an association of business and culture representatives, was the “alarming” realisation that the world-famous street was “no longer loved, no longer likeable, deserted by Parisians, and feared by foreigners”, reads the committee’s report.

“Everyone was fleeing,” they wrote.

A giant open-air picnic held on the avenue at the weekend was an example of how the committee plans to address the issue.

“It’s a way of telling Parisians: Come back to the Champs-Elysees,” committee chairman Marc-Antoine Jamet said.

With stores and historic cinemas closing along the avenue due to rising rents and falling sales, “innovation is an absolute necessity”, he said.

The 1,800-page plan seeks to reverse the decline while balancing the needs of locals and tourists.

The committee estimates the cost will be €250 million, but Jamet said the additional tax revenue generated by the changes would be enough to finance all or some of the project.

“These are not costs but investments.”

A self-proclaimed Paris “superfan” who has visited from Pakistan 22 times, 33-year-old Jawwad Channa said he always visits the Champs-Elysees, this time bringing along four friends looking forward to hitting the stores.

“It’s very crowded, but the shopping is amazing,” said his friend Ali Syed, 32.

Shopping will remain a mainstay, but central to the committee’s plan is adapting the avenue to global warming and reducing its carbon footprint by a third over 50 years, with plans to reduce traffic by increasing pedestrian space and doubling bike lanes.

‘Revamp the neighbourhood’

The committee also aims to lower the avenue’s average temperature by one to seven degrees Celsius, creating a “climate sanctuary” during the city’s increasingly common heatwaves.

Proposals include planting 160 trees, installing seating and fountains, and transforming 20 hectares of unkempt gardens into a “true Parisian park”.

Symphony concerts, a “quality” Christmas market and flower stalls are also part of a push for “year-round” cultural offerings to “revamp the neighbourhood”.

Sunday’s picnic, at which thousands turned out on the “world’s largest tablecloth”, came after an event last year when France’s brainiest bookworms battled it out in a mass spelling test at 1,779 desks set out along the avenue.

With France’s presidential palace and National Assembly nearby, security remains a concern, though the proposal includes plans to increase the police presence and establish a 24-hour “health and safety” watch.

“We are going to discuss this with all partners,” said Paris’s deputy mayor Emmanuel Gregoire, adding that discussions would first take place with the police.

“The idea is Paris’s mayor could announce a broad outline in the second half of 2024,” Gregoire said.

Gabin Contentin, 21, said big changes were needed for him and other locals to be lured back.

But if all goes well, he predicted, the Champs-Elysees can “once again be the most beautiful avenue in the world”.

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