“DISNEYLAND WITH THE KIDS”
French Transport Minister Clement Beaune described the closure as “unacceptable” and added that a solution had to be found.
“I call on everyone to be responsible and ensure good conditions for traffic and holiday departures,” he said.
The announcement of the cancellation of services sparked dismay in train stations, with people scrambling to change their reservations on their phones or even book a last-minute flight.
Thomson Mouana, from South Africa, with three children with him, had been in the UK on holiday but needed to leave for his flight home.
“This is disturbing us. We don’t have the money and we don’t know what to do.”
“We must get to South Africa but now we are stuck.”
English traveller Sam Boyal said: “We were going to Disneyland (outside Paris) with the kids … it’s just too stressful. You can’t drive suddenly with three kids, you’ve got to plan that.”
Eurostar employees meanwhile announced at the Gare du Nord station in Paris on a megaphone that all trains for the rest of the day were cancelled.
At Calais in northern France, long queues of vehicles of more than a kilometre were beginning to form at the entrance to the French terminal where cars and trucks board trains to reach the English port of Folkestone on the other side of the Channel.
Eurostar is owned 55.75 per cent by French state-owned SNCF Voyageurs, 19.31 per cent by a Quebec public investment bank, 18.5 per cent by Belgian operator SNCB and 6.44 per cent by US-based Federated Hermes Infrastructure.
It almost went bankrupt during the COVID-19 pandemic but was saved with a 290-million-euro bailout from shareholders including the French government.
The company is reporting solid passenger numbers but increased checks after Brexit have also forced it to reduce capacity.
Source: CNA
