Star Metro - French unions announce end of Channel tunnel strike

The shock action by workers operating the Channel tunnel stranded thousands of pre-Christmas travellers and freight traffic, sparking chaos at rail hubs in Paris and London.

Employees of Eurotunnel, a subsidiary of the tunnel's French operator Getlink, said the movement was motivated by a "terrible deterioration of the social climate".

Getlink said French unions rejected an end-of-year bonus of 1,000 euros ($1,100) and demanded its tripling.

Eurotunnel unions later announced they were ending the strike following negotiations with management that "bore results that satisfy us".

Getlink said rail shuttle service would resume from Thursday evening and Eurostar passenger trains would follow suit on Friday.

There were scenes of chaos at Gare du Nord station in Paris and St Pancras in London -- the main hubs for cross-Channel passenger train travel -- as travellers waited for services to resume only to be told their trains were cancelled.

Four trains were held en route when the surprise strike started, before returning to their starting point and then being cancelled.

The Channel Tunnel opened in 1994. It carries passengers on Eurostar trains as well as cars and freight vehicles on special cargo shuttles.

Eurostar trains also run direct to Belgium and the Netherlands through the tunnel via the northern French city of Lille.

- 'Disneyland with the kids' -

French Transport Minister Clement Beaune described the closure as "unacceptable".

"I call on everyone to be responsible and ensure good conditions for traffic and holiday departures," he said.

The announcement of the cancellation of services sparked dismay in train stations, with people scrambling to change their reservations on their phone or even book last-minute flights.

Thomson Mouana, from South Africa, with three children with him, had been in the UK on holiday but needed to leave for his flight home.

"This is disturbing us. We don't have the money and we don't know what to do."

"We must get to South Africa but now we are stuck."

English traveller Sam Boyal said: "We were going to Disneyland (outside Paris) with the kids... it's just too stressful. You can't drive suddenly with three kids, you've got to plan that."

Eurostar employees used megaphones to tell stranded passengers at the Gare du Nord station in Paris that all trains for the rest of the day were cancelled.

At Calais in northern France, vehicle queues more than a kilometre long were beginning to form at the entrance to the French terminal where cars and trucks board trains to reach Folkestone on the other side of the Channel.

Eurostar is owned 55.75 percent by French state-owned SNCF Voyageurs, 19.31 percent by a Quebec public investment bank, 18.5 percent by Belgian operator SNCB and 6.44 percent by US-based Federated Hermes Infrastructure.

It almost went bankrupt during the Covid-19 pandemic but was saved with a 290-million-euro bailout from shareholders including the French government.

The company is reporting solid passenger numbers but increased checks after Brexit have forced it to reduce capacity.

A.Gagnon--SMC