Paris strike schedules

The strike you heard about is over. They do not strike every year but the last one was long compared to the past.
Try to buy in February or 90 days before you travel

https://en.oui.sncf/en/train/strike

@jazz+travels when can you find out if they will have strikes next year? I will not be looking forward to playing dodge em with travel dates. We leave Detroit on Monday afternoon and arrive in Paris Tues morning Will be taking a train that afternoon up to Bayeux and stay for 2 nights then return to Paris for 6 nights. I'm not ocd about planning at all but this trip is forcing me to be. It's our first trip abroad.

mbeaulieu, strikes are not planned years ahead, like the Olympics. They happen when the employees are annoyed enough to stop working. Luckily the unions usually announce them a few weeks ahead.

Unfortunately if there's going to be a strike there really won't be anything you can do about it. Book your trip. Odds are very very good that you'll be fine. I've been in Paris twice now when there's been a strike on something and its really not caused me a problem. First time was about 10 years ago when the subway and RER operators went on strike the day I was set to leave Paris as did (I believe) transportation officials which affected many of the short and medium-haul flights out of CDG.. I simply got a hotel near the airport and went out the evening before. No problem although I could not get a refund on my hotel in the City for that last night. But I got a decent night's sleep and a respectable breakfast in the morning. Added bonus - the airport was much emptier for my long haul flight. Last October when my wife and I were flying back on Air France someone was on strike- not sure whom - but it slowed down the check in lines for baggage at the AF counters. But since we had followed all of the recommendations by people on this board and gotten to the airport insanely early, we were fine. You'll be fine as well!

I will relate my experience with the Paris train strike this past April. In January, we bought tickets from Paris to Amsterdam on the TGV high speed train for our April trip. I then heard about the strikes and wouldn't you know it, our tickets were for a strike day! We were advised to wait until we arrived in Paris to find out if our train would be affected, so we waited. On Saturday before our Monday morning train, we walked to the local SNCF train office and inquired about our train. We were told it would be running. Even if it were not, we would have been able to take the next train. I learned from this experience not to get too worried about things that are out of your control. You do what you can with the situation that arises.
My advice is to book your tickets when the 90-day window opens and don't worry about strikes which may or may not happen. Who knows next year could be a different scenario like bad weather, etc., all things out of our control. Best thing is to plan for your trip and have confidence you will know how to respond if something happens.
Btw, I loved Bayeux, a neat city with a cathedral I loved. It was lovely with its colorful stained glass but also seemed to have been built on a more human scale. I assume you are going to see the Tapestry?

We were in France for the month of May 2018. Fortunately we did not have any train trips on the scheduled strike days. We almost had a problem with a flight from Paris to Dublin on the day before a strike day. The air traffic controllers at CDG were slowing down on the afternoon before the strike day. We might have Ben on the last flight to leave Paris that day.