Only a fraction of high-speed and inter-city trains ran on Christmas Eve and even fewer were operating on the holiday itself. President Emmanuel Macron had called for a holiday truce, but negotiations between the government and unions last week failed to find common ground. Transport on Thursday will remain very disrupted, with only one in two TGV high speed trains running, five Paris metro lines closed and regional and suburban train services also impaired. Unions are hoping for a repeat of 1995 when the government backed down on pension reform after three weeks of metro and rail stoppages just before Christmas. The man leading the pension reform project, Laurent Pietraszewski, said Tuesday the government would be "willing to compromise" in the negotiations, set to last throughout January.

Source: The Local December 26, 2019 09:11 UTC