Workers Strike Paralyzes Paris Metro Network, Interrupts Travel Of Millions Of Passengers

Illustration of a Paris Metro station. (Wikimedia Commons/Benjism89)

JAKARTA - A major strike crippled much of Paris's metro network and the city's rail network on Friday, disrupting the daily commute of millions of people, as workers demanded bigger pay increases than management offered.

The French capital's public transport company RATP said six subway lines were closed, down from eight previously reported on Friday, with the remaining lines only partially operating.

The city's main RER lines from north to south and east to west have also been badly hit by this strike.

Only two lines, 1 and 14, as trains on both lines are autonomous, with no human conductors, were not affected by the attack, RATP said on its website.

"We call on business owners to take full advantage of work from home schemes," Transport Minister Jean-Baptiste Djeebbari said on Twitter.

RATP workers said the strike, which occurred as unions and management lead annual wage talks, was the result of inadequate pay increases offered by state-owned companies.

The RATP has said it is ready to raise wages by 2.7 percent by 2022, a move the union described this month as a 'provocation'.

It is known, France's national annual inflation was last reported at 3.3 percent in January.

In recent years, Paris' public transport system, one of the busiest in the world, has been in chaos at times.

To note, Parisians especially remember the month-long strike in the fall of 2019, when public transport and rail workers protested President Emmanuel Macron's pension reform plans.

At that time, President Macron later canceled reforms, citing the changing situation due to the COVID-19 pandemic.