Paris Strikes & Protests: How to Get Around

A strike or a march has been announced for one of your days in Paris. Here is what that actually means on the ground: a few metro and RER lines running less often, and one or two avenues closed for a few hours while the procession passes. The rest of the city — museums, restaurants, the Seine, the whole west of Paris — is open and getting on with its day. This guide covers what is disrupted, what to do with the day, and how to reach your airport or station without stress.

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What is affected, and what is not

Two very different things get filed under the same headline. It helps to know which one you are dealing with.

A transport strike

When RATP or SNCF staff strike, the metro, the RER A, B and C, the Transilien suburban trains and the rail links to the airports run a reduced timetable, and some stations close for the day. Above ground, nothing changes: the streets are open, taxis and private chauffeurs work as usual, and so do museums, shops and restaurants. The one real effect is that more Parisians drive, so the roads are busier than normal from early morning. The answer is not to avoid the car, but to leave earlier than you would on an ordinary day.

A march or demonstration

Large marches in Paris follow a handful of well-worn routes: République to Nation, Bastille, Invalides, Denfert-Rochereau, the Grands Boulevards. The route is declared in advance and the police close it to traffic only for the hours the procession takes to pass. A few metro stations along the way shut their entrances, some bridges are filtered, and the cafés and shops sitting directly on the route lower their shutters around 1 pm and reopen in the evening. Two streets away, Paris looks exactly as it does on any other day. Your chauffeur knows the route of the day and simply plans around it.

What to do that day

The trick is to pick a part of Paris that the procession never touches, and to move between stops by car rather than by metro. Three good ways to spend the day:

The west of Paris

Marches rarely go west of the Invalides, which leaves you the Eiffel Tower and the Trocadéro, the Musée du Quai Branly, the Palais de Tokyo and the Musée d'Art Moderne side by side, the Fondation Louis Vuitton with the Jardin d'Acclimatation next door for families, and the Musée Marmottan with its Monets. Lunch in Auteuil or Neuilly keeps you well clear of the centre. All of it is a short drive from the main hotel districts, with no metro change involved.

The Seine

A river cruise runs regardless of what is happening on the boulevards, and the quays stay accessible by car. A one-hour cruise in the afternoon, or a dinner cruise in the evening, turns a disrupted day into one of the best of the trip. If you want the Île de la Cité, go first thing in the morning with timed tickets, before the centre fills up.

Out of town, by car

A strike day is the perfect excuse for a day trip. Versailles is 40 minutes by road, Giverny about an hour and a quarter, Fontainebleau, Vaux-le-Vicomte and Chantilly under an hour each. When the RER A is affected, Disneyland Paris by car is the one way to get the family to the gates on time. You leave from your hotel, and you come back to it, without touching a platform.

Two habits worth keeping: check the opening of the big museums on the morning itself, because museum staff can strike independently and a few rooms, or the whole building, may be closed; and do not linger on the route of the march, especially towards the end of the afternoon when the procession disperses.

Airport or station on a strike day

This is where a strike bites hardest for a visitor: the RER B to Charles de Gaulle and the trains to Orly are often the first to thin out, and a hotel-to-terminal journey that normally takes an hour can become an anxious morning. By road, the problem goes away. A private airport transfer collects you at your hotel door and drops you at your terminal, whether that is CDG, Orly or Beauvais.

For the Eurostar, the Gare du Nord has a dedicated drop-off area; your chauffeur uses it and you walk straight to the check-in hall with your bags. The same goes for Gare de Lyon and Montparnasse if you are heading south or west.

We will be straight with you about what a chauffeur can and cannot do. We follow traffic in real time, we choose the route on the day rather than the night before, and we tell you the departure time we recommend. What we cannot do is promise a journey time on a day when half of Paris is driving. So we build in a margin together: leaving thirty to forty-five minutes earlier than usual is normally enough, and the worst case is an extra coffee at the airport.

Four simple rules

Leave earlier. Thirty to forty-five minutes of margin covers almost every strike-day delay on the road.
Buy timed tickets. Louvre, Orsay, Eiffel Tower, Versailles: a timed entry means you skip the queue that forms when everyone arrives late at once.
Have lunch away from the route. Pick a table in the west, by the river or out of town, and the shuttered terraces on the boulevards will not concern you.
Use a chauffeur who follows the traffic. A car at your disposal by the hour waits while you visit, keeps your bags, and takes the detour you would never find on your own.

A typical strike-day programme

This is the day we most often suggest to guests who call us the evening before. It is intra-Paris, needs no public transport, and sits entirely outside the usual march routes.

Morning

Pickup at the hotel at 9:00. Eiffel Tower with timed tickets, then the Trocadéro for the view and the photographs. Twenty minutes in the car to the Fondation Louis Vuitton, or the Musée Marmottan if you prefer Impressionism to contemporary art.

Lunch

A table in Neuilly or Auteuil, booked by your chauffeur if you wish. No metro, no walk, no closed terraces.

Afternoon

Back towards the river for the Musée du Quai Branly or the Palais de Tokyo, then a one-hour Seine cruise from the quays below the Eiffel Tower. Return to the hotel by 17:30, before the end-of-march traffic.

Evening

Dinner cruise, or a restaurant on the Left Bank near Saint-Germain, with your chauffeur at the door at the end of the meal. If you fly the next morning, this is the moment to confirm your departure time with us.

Count on six to eight hours of hourly hire for a day like this, less if you only want the morning and the airport run. We adapt it to your hotel, your interests and the route of the day.

Frequently asked questions

Is Paris safe on a protest day?

Yes. A march follows a route announced in advance and policed from end to end, and the disruption is limited to those avenues for a few hours. Elsewhere in Paris, restaurants, museums and shops open as usual. The sensible habit is simply not to linger on the route itself, particularly towards the end of the afternoon.

Are the museums open during a strike?

Usually, yes. A transport strike does not close the Louvre or the Musée d'Orsay. Museum staff can, however, call a strike of their own, which may close some rooms or delay opening. Check the museum's website or social media the same morning before you set off, and keep a second option within a short drive.

Can I still get to the airport on a strike day?

Yes, by road. CDG, Orly and Beauvais remain reachable by car when the RER and the airport trains run a reduced service. Allow extra time, because more people drive that day; your chauffeur follows live traffic, adapts the route and drops you at your terminal door.

Do taxis and private hire cars run during a strike?

Yes. Taxis, VTC and private chauffeurs are not part of a public-transport strike and keep working. Demand is far higher than usual, though, so a car booked in advance for a fixed time is much more reliable than one hailed on the day.

How much does a private chauffeur cost by the hour?

A chauffeur at your disposal costs 79 €/hour in Business Class, 109 €/hour in a Business Van and 150 €/hour in First Class, with a 2-hour minimum and 25 km included per hour. On a strike day, two or three hours are enough to link the morning's visits, lunch and your hotel without touching public transport.

Keep your Paris day on track

Tell us your hotel, your flight or train, and what you would like to see. We plan the day around the route of the march and drive you door to door.