Day of action to bring travel chaos in France

French airline Air France plans to cancel 65% of its short and medium-haul flights on Tuesday amid a nationwide strike expected to wreak havoc for air and land travel.

The “day of action” by unions over government plans to reform retirement benefits is expected to cut deeply into air, train, bus and underground travel.

Air traffic controllers were among those planning to walk off the job.

Air France said it would maintain all of its long-haul flights, but a statement said that the national carrier would cancel 65% of its short and medium-haul flights. Some of Air France’s personnel are among those taking part in the walkout.

In London, British Airways said this weekend it anticipated “quite a number of disrupted and cancelled flights” while other carriers said aircraft would simply be grounded.

On the ground, almost all networks of the SNCF, the train authority, were expected to fall victim to the strike, with SNCF workers planning to walk out at 8pm (6pm Irish time) Monday.

The Eurostar, which travels to London, was among the rare routes not expected to be affected.

Metro and bus traffic in Paris is to be “very sharply reduced,” according to the RATP which runs the systems. Urban transport strikes were planned in some 60 cities.

The government of centre-right Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin is in the midst of a major reform of France’s overburdened pension system to save it from collapse. He wants the new pension plan voted in by Parliament before summer holidays at the start of July.

The prime minister has said he would not be intimidated by the strikes. “It is not the street that governs,” he said recently.