More Strikes

Yup, also sitting on the edge of my seat here. We're flying from SFO on June 2nd for June 3rd arrival at CDG. Then...we've got a rental car (prepaid) and a 4-week road-trip throughout western and northern France, hotels also pre-paid.

I know your pain all too well.

In '95 we were "stuck" in Paris during the nearly month-long transportation strike that paralyzed the entire country. Even the communications workers joined in sympathy making it nearly impossible to call out of France in order to make any kind of transportation arrangements out of the country. Our hotel concierge put us in touch with a private plane air-taxi owner who agreed to fly a handful of people to Brussels where we could make our own connections back to the states and Canada. The concierge's brother-in-law drove us to Le Bourget where we crammed into a Reims Caravan II air taxi hoping and praying for clearance to take off. It was like a scene from the movie "Argo." After waiting for nearly an hour, we were finally on our way.

My wife and I still laugh about it to this day. Most of the French people we encountered during our ordeal were nothing short of fantastic, solidifying my love for their country. Please be patient and don't be surprised if you need to be a little creative in searching for transportation. If you haven't done so already, put together a Plan B or even a Plan C.

Bonne chance!

I never knew about the propensity for so many strikes in Paris. We're booked on a TGV Lyria train from Lausanne Switzerland in September. If there is a rail strike at that time, what would be our next viable option? A plane from Geneva?

Just a note in regard to the air traffic controllers . . I should correct what I said earlier on another thread.

Air traffic controllers have filed a MOTION to strike on June 3-5 - however, they will wait to decide WHETHER to strike on May 31, after a meeting with French civil aviation authorities. So we'll know more on Tuesday. Maybe they will get what they want and decide that the strike isn't necessary (I kind of doubt that, but at least it's a possibility).

Cindy - usually the international trains are the last ones to be affected, and the you will be able to figure out ahead of time whether your train will be affected or not. There's another thread on here in which I linked to the options that the SNCF (French rail company) usually makes available to passengers if there is a strike.

(As an aside, that's one "good" thing about French strikes: they are usually planned ahead and people are well notified! Spontaneous strikes are rare and mostly illegal.)

Here's the earlier thread and my note on another thread referring back to the earlier thread.

Please see this thread where I posted information about how, if the strike is running when you're supposed to travel, to change your tickets or ride on a different train etc. (the dates here were from last week's strike, but the original website will update the dates according to future strikes -- the principle will remain the same, however):
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/france/strike-update-and-some-thoughts