SNCF strike on 5 November goes ahead after €400 bonus offer

France's four representative rail unions are keeping their national strike at SNCF on Thursday 5 November, after a pay round table on 3 November ended without the wage talks they asked for. SNCF expects TGV services to be slightly disrupted and Intercités, TER and Paris-region trains to be disrupted, with line-by-line forecasts due on Wednesday afternoon.

At the round table held at SNCF's head office in Saint-Denis on Tuesday, management offered a €400 value-sharing bonus, prorated and paid in early December, a 5% rise in home-to-work mileage allowances from 1 November and a 2% rise in Sunday, bank holiday and night-work allowances, according to CGT-Cheminots. The union says the demands were pushed back to the 2027 annual pay round, with a further round table pencilled in for mid-January, and that more than 3,000 rail workers rallied outside. A one-off bonus leaves base pay untouched, which is the heart of the dispute.

CGT-Cheminots, UNSA-Ferroviaire, SUD-Rail and CFDT-Cheminots set out their demands in a joint statement on 15 October: a general pay rise, higher bonuses, a reform of the residence allowance and a full 13th month. They point to the record €1.2bn half-year net profit SNCF reported in July. Their notice runs from 7pm on Wednesday 4 November to 8am on Friday 6 November, the same day as a cross-sector strike called by France's main union confederations.

SNCF expects TGVs to fare better than regional trains

In a short statement on Tuesday, reported by franceinfo with AFP, SNCF said TGV services would be "slightly disrupted" and Intercités, TER, Paris-region trains and RER lines "disrupted". It has given no separate forecast for OUIGO and no share of trains running. The detailed timetable is due on Wednesday late afternoon, in line with the law of 21 August 2007, which requires SNCF to inform passengers at least 24 hours before disruption starts. TGV and Intercités passengers whose train is cancelled will be contacted and can exchange or refund their ticket free of charge. Eurostar, TGV Lyria and the Paris–Barcelona TGV use the same French network: check your operator's travel updates.

Why do some trains run on a strike day and others not? A train without a driver cannot leave, so SNCF builds its plan around the drivers and conductors who have not declared. Signallers are different: if the signal box controlling an area is unstaffed, trains generally cannot pass through it, whichever company runs them.

The strike ends a few hours before SNCF's TGV M makes its inaugural run between Paris and Marseille on Friday 6 November, with first passengers expected from Monday 9 November, according to an internal SNCF document reported by Voyages d'Affaires.

Refunds and other strikes in Europe

Under EU Regulation 2021/782 on rail passengers' rights, if your train is cancelled you can choose between a refund and another journey. If you travel and arrive 60 minutes late or more, compensation is due: a strike by the operator's own staff is not an exceptional circumstance.

France is not alone this month. In Spain, the Semaf drivers' union has called a full stoppage at Renfe on 10 November and partial stoppages on 12 November, either side of a general strike on 11 November. In Italy, Italo staff strike from 9.01am to 4.59pm on 9 November, and CUB Trasporti and SGB call a national rail strike from 9pm on 20 November to 8pm on 21 November. Our November train strike calendar is updated every morning.

The next step is SNCF's line-by-line timetable on Wednesday afternoon.

Read more: London to Paris by train.

Sources: CGT-Cheminots, report on the 3 November round table (03/11/2026); franceinfo with AFP, SNCF and RATP forecasts (03/11/2026); CGT-Cheminots, UNSA-Ferroviaire, SUD-Rail and CFDT-Cheminots, joint statement (15/10/2026); SUD-Rail, joint strike notice from 7pm on 4 November to 8am on 6 November (28/10/2026); CFDT, cross-sector strike call (05/10/2026); French Senate, ministry answer on the law of 21 August 2007 (24/11/2022); Voyages d'Affaires, TGV M: the first passengers expected on November 9 (26/10/2026); Semaf, statement 2026-51 (29/10/2026); UGT, general strike notice (19/10/2026); Adnkronos, Italo strike on 9 November (30/10/2026); Universinet, November rail strikes in Italy, from the Transport Ministry list (01/11/2026).

Photo: SNCF TGV Duplex no. 211 at Paris-Gare de Lyon, 8 October 2012 — Francisco Welter-Schultes, Wikimedia Commons, CC0.

Article written with the help of artificial intelligence from the sources cited, reviewed by the TrainsNews editorial team before publication.