22h20 – France: the rail strike cost the SNCF 790 million euros

The movement of French railway workers against the railway reform has cost the SNCF, the public operator: 790 million euros, or more than 21 million for each of the 37 strike days of spring, according to an internal document consulted Friday by AFP.The boss of the SNCF, Guillaume Pepy, had mentioned early April a cost "of the order of 20 million euros per day" for this strike followed by the rail workers who refused a railway reform wanted by President Emmanuel Macron, removing the status of railway for new hires and transforming the SNCF into a public limited company, including. This invoice of 790 million euros exceeds the amount of net profit recorded by the group in 2017 (679 million), notes the SNCF in its document. The railwaymen first stopped work on March 22, before staggering 36 strike days from April 3 to June 28. Most of the slate is attributable to a loss of € 770 million in sales, largely due to the drop in revenue from pbadenger activities (€ -600 million), as many renounced to the train due to traffic disruptions. "The total cost of the strike reflects both the loss of turnover suffered by the company but also the unprecedented amount of 160 million euros of commercial measures decided by SNCF to support its customers and limit the financial impact of the strike on the latter ", commented a manager of the SNCF interviewed by AFP. (Belga)

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