Eurostar travel chaos enters a third week as British passengers are told not to travel to Paris, more trains are cancelled and customers face five-hour delays over French border guards’ ‘Brexit-style’ work-to-rule strike
- Militant trade unionists have used the threat of Brexit to cause chaos at borders
- Eurostar passengers have been advised to avoid high-speed trains to Paris
- French customs officials are working slowly to campaign for better pay
- Long queues built up at the Gare du Nord as a result of the industrial action
Eurostar cancelled their high-speed trains to Paris from London for three more days today as industrial action by French customs officials reaches its third week.
Passengers should only use high-speed trains from Paris to London ‘if absolutely necessary’ due to delays of up to five hours caused by industrial action.
Trade unionists have used the threat of Brexit to campaign for better pay and conditions and strikes are set to continue until tomorrow.
Travellers queue at the Eurostar terminal in London’s St Pancras last week as militant French trade unionists used Brexit as an excuse for industrial action
This morning delays on services from Paris are delayed from between 45 minutes and an hour, according to a Eurostar spokesman.
The spokesman said: ‘French customs officers at Paris Gare du Nord continue to take part in industrial action.
‘As a result, the regular pre-departure security checks are taking longer than usual and this is causing delays on departure in Paris.
‘We are very sorry for the inconvenience this is causing passengers, and to provide as much flexibility as possible we are offering a free exchange or refund to any passenger who would prefer to postpone their trip.’
It is part of a nationwide protest by French officials, who caused disruption at stations including the Gare Du Nord in Paris (left) and 15-mile tailbacks around ports including Dover (right)
Long queues built up at the Gare du Nord, the company’s hub in the French capital, as passengers waited for up to five hours to get through customs checks.
There were cancellations in London too, with the 7.31 service from London St Pancras to Paris scrapped first thing this morning.
Eurostar has been paying out thousands in compensation since the French action started at the beginning of the month.
Last week five French unions representing 17,000 customs officials rejected a pay boost worth more than £12m a year, saying they wanted far more to deal with the extra workload caused by Brexit.
In turn, passengers have accused the French of acting with brutal cynicism, as they already deal with thousands of non-EU passport holders every day.
Camille Hulot, 19, was reduced to floods of tears by three uniformed customs men at the Gare du Nord last week as she travelled back to her classes in England.
She was forced to wait in line for three-and-a-half hours, and then told she might have to queue again as ‘punishment for being impolite’.
Ms Hulot said: ‘All they wanted to do was hold people up so that their journeys were disrupted, while dishonestly using Brexit as an excuse. It is an absolute scandal.’
A spokesman for the Douane, the French customs, confirmed that staff were ‘reinforcing controls’.
Travellers have been held up all over northern France during the custom’s work to rule, including at ports such as Calais, where lorries have been caught up in 15 miles tailbacks.