US EditionFury over New ‘No Kids’ Section on French Trains
Optimum Plus offers a quieter, more spacious first-class experience for business travellers with children under 12 excluded from 8% of tickets on select Paris-Lyon TGV trains.
- SNCF launched the Optimum Plus option on selected TGV services between Paris and Lyon, replacing Business Première and adding to normal first-class and standard carriages.
- Targeting quieter, personalised travel, the new class provides dedicated quiet carriages with more spacious seats and fewer passengers, SNCF said Optimum Plus meets business travellers' expectations for personalised assistance and flexibility.
- Ticket conditions explicitly bar children under 12 from Optimum Plus, SNCF said, citing maximum comfort reasons.
- Sarah El‑Haïry, France's children's commissioner, criticised the policy and said she will meet Jean Castex, head of SNCF, in the next few days to raise concerns.
- SNCF later clarified children younger than 12 remain welcome elsewhere on the train and said Optimum Plus accounts for about 8 percent of tickets, amid the French government’s debate on adult-only hotels.
15 Articles
15 Articles
This Thursday morning in a TGV between Paris and Lyon. We are in a first-class car intended for travellers who take advantage of the journey to work. To guarantee their calm, the SNCF forbids access to this space for children under the age of 12. The offer launched at the beginning of January provokes controversy. Is this trend of ''childless'' really gaining ground in our country? Hotels, campsites, restaurants are already making the choice not…
The SNCF has decided to set up a space reserved for the over 12 years in some of its TGV INOui. A measure that makes react in the Hexagon. ...
The SNCF has launched on Monday 8 January an offer that proposes a car where the presence of children under the age of 12 is prohibited. A novelty that has prompted Sarah El Haïry, the High Commissioner for Children, to react.
The controversy is swelling: with the launch of its Optimum and Optimum+ classes, SNCF Voyageurs is accused of limiting the presence of children on its trains. If this class is accessible "only from the age of 12", the reality is less simple.
In the face of criticism, SNCF defended itself on Wednesday, stating that this class was open to all "from the age of 12" and that Optimum seats represented "only 8% of the spaces that are offered in trains from Monday to Friday".
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