When France’s first privately-run freight train for 57 years left Dugny, in eastern France, for Germany in June 2005, trade unionists defending the monopoly of SNCF, the state train operator, set off smoke bombs and flares in an attempt to halt it.
They failed. And, less than three years on, it would be unthinkable for the trade unions in one of Europe’s most reluctant rail liberalisers to try to halt the many trains now running daily in competition with SNCF.
