Channel Tunnel Shut for Second Day as Ferry Workers Block French Port of Calais

By Matthias Blamont

CALAIS, France, June 30 (Reuters) – Ferry staff on Tuesday threatened to proceed their protest on Wednesday after blocking Calais’ port for 2 days, forcing the closure of the Channel Tunnel linking France and England for a number of hours.

The ferry staff on Tuesday blocked the tunnel’s entrance by setting fireplace to tires thrown onto railway tracks.

It is the second time they’ve shut the tunnel in lower than per week, inflicting chaos for trucking corporations and holidaymakers.

More motion was deliberate for Wednesday, commerce unionist Eric Vercoutre of the MyFerryHyperlink works council mentioned.

Workers at ferry service MyFerryHyperlink are attempting to forestall job cuts after their firm was bought to a Danish agency earlier this month. MyFerryHyperlink was beforehand owned by Eurotunnel, the corporate that operates the undersea cross-Channel rail hyperlink.

Eurotunnel Chief Executive Jacques Gounon was as a consequence of meet French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron on Friday, Vercoutre added.

“We want to make the French, British and Belgian governments understand that if a solution isn’t found to save our 600 jobs, there will be a lot of disruption this summer,” Vercoutre mentioned.

“When the mobilization ramps up, we’ll block everything, which could disrupt Eurotunnel,” he warned.

Eurotunnel mentioned on its web site: “Our passenger service is temporarily suspended due to a breach of our terminal boundaries.”

Strike motion by round 400 staff final week brought on main visitors jams of lorries.

Calais is a magnet for migrants, many from troubled components of Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, who use it as a jumping-off level to attempt to get throughout to Britain. The chaos of the previous week has seen a rise in makes an attempt to stow away on vans heading throughout the Channel.

A Reuters reporter in Calais noticed dozens of lorries jammed up on the motorway resulting in the port on Tuesday. Strikers barred entry to the port, which seemed largely empty inside. Just three passenger vehicles had been ready at customs.

“This is not a very nice thing to happen to us,” Stanley Shakespeare, a retired Londoner, mentioned as he and his spouse tried to go house after a vacation in Spain.

“We love France and we love the French people, who are very nice, but as we got here today I may change my mind.”

Eurotunnel in June agreed to promote its Calais-to-Dover ferry enterprise to Denmark’s DFDS to finish a prolonged battle with British competitors authorities.

SCOP Sea France, the co-operative of staff that runs the ferries, requested a industrial court docket to increase its contract with Eurotunnel and forestall it from being dissolved after the sale. The court docket on Monday rejected that request.

DFDS, which is about to take over operation of the ferries on July 2, has pledged to maintain 202 out of 577 staff, a degree the union sees as unacceptable.

The ferry staff had initially tried to purchase the enterprise of working the 2 ferries from Eurotunnel themselves however failed. (Writing by Mark John; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and William Hardy)