French Rail Unions Take on Macron With Mass Rolling Strikes

People help a woman who fell onto a railtrack in Gare de Lyon railway station in Paris on April 3, 2018, at the start of three months of rolling rail strikes. Staff at state rail operator SNCF walked off the job from 7.00 pm (1700 GMT) on April 2, the first in a series of walkouts affecting everything from energy to garbage collection. Christophe Simon/AFP/Getty Images

PARIS—French railway services were thrown into chaos on Tuesday, the first day of rolling nationwide strikes that are set to run for months in the toughest test yet of President Emmanuel Macron’s determination to modernize the French economy.

Just one in four trains were running in the Paris region, national rail company SNCF said, as people made their way back to work after an extended Easter holiday weekend on what French media dubbed “Black Tuesday”.