RATP: striking employees ask to be received by Jean Castex

For his first day at the head of the RATP, the former Prime Minister Jean Castex was firmly awaited at the headquarters in Paris by "at least 400" employees, several strikers told AFP, mainly from the maintenance workshops of the metros and RER.

“We are asking for an increase in our salaries by 50 points, or 300 euros”, indicates Fabrice Delage, CGT union representative in the Railway Rolling Stock (MRF) department of the Régie.

Instead of Jean Castex, a small delegation was heard by Sylvie Buglioni, director of MRF, as well as by a representative of the group's human relations. The interview was cut short when several dozen demonstrators interfered in the meeting, noted an AFP journalist.

Faced with the employees' complaints, the management representatives stuck to promising that they would be received by Mr. Castex "in the coming weeks" and that the wage demands would be discussed "in the context of the end-of-term negotiations. 'year".

Reassembled, the strikers plan to continue their movement. "The agents did not go on strike for a month and a half for nothing," says Thibault Dasquet, maintenance agent at the Rueil-Malmaison workshop.

For another employee of the Choisy workshop, the strike "is starting to be felt in the bank account". "This is what management expects, for people to be dry and stop the movement," he explains.

Started on October 18 at the Sucy-en-Brie workshop where the RER line A trains are maintained, the strike movement has since won "a good fifteen" workshops out of 25. The workshops have some 3,000 employees. .

It is intensifying and could be reinforced by a bus drivers' strike. “I am there in support”, testifies Faouzi Abou Rayan, technician at the Clignancourt maintenance workshop who also plans to go on strike with his colleagues to “snowball” and obtain “the common goal” of the 300 euros. “We have become die-hards,” he laments.