Rail Strike Brings France to Screeching Halt

A nationwide rail strike hobbled trains from the suburban express to the London-bound Eurostar on Thursday, leaving many French commuters stuck in traffic jams.

The strike tops a week of traffic woes for the French. Bus and subway workers paralyzed dozens of major cities in strikes Monday through Wednesday.

Paris was spared in the first job action but was hit hard Thursday, with suburban trains and long-distance and high-speed trains crippled.

At one point during morning rush hour, the Regional Road Information Center measured a total of 145 miles of traffic jams on highways feeding into the French capital.

Highways around Lille, in the northeast, and Lyons, in east-central France, also were choked with miles of cars.

Officials at the state-run train authority said that two out of three Eurostars to London were running. They said the same was true of Thalys trains, which connect Paris to Brussels, Amsterdam and Cologne.

Five leading rail unions were taking part in the strike to demand higher pay and protest a planned reorganization of the train authority.

In England, London commuters also faced long traffic jams, a long wait for the bus or a long walk, as a 24-hour strike virtually shut down the British capital’s subway system. Signal workers and station staff walked off the job Wednesday evening, citing concerns about safety and job security under a plan to partly privatize the London Underground.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government argues that a so-called Public Private Partnership would make the Tube, as it is known, safer and more efficient. Mayor Ken Livingstone and his transport commissioner, Robert Kiley--a former head of the New York subway--argue that breaking the Tube into separate public and private companies would do just the opposite.