Snowfall in France: Traffic jams exceed 950 km, major highways closed
Continued snowfall in Western Europe has caused major transport disruptions in France, Qazinform News Agency reports.
At 7 a.m., French transport company RATP announced that all bus services would be suspended “at least until noon” until safety conditions improve. The same measure was taken by Île-de-France Mobilités. The Paris metro remains unaffected and continues to operate normally.
Highway N118 was closed in both directions due to icy conditions, following a decision by the police prefect. Road traffic in the Île-de-France region deteriorated rapidly: from relatively minor congestion at 8 a.m. to more than 700 km of jams by 9 a.m., later surging to 950 km. This comes just two days after Monday’s record of 1,019 km.
❄️ 𝗟’𝗜̂𝗟𝗘-𝗗𝗘-𝗙𝗥𝗔𝗡𝗖𝗘 𝗣𝗔𝗥𝗔𝗟𝗬𝗦𝗘́𝗘 !!
— Kultur (@Kulturlesite_) January 5, 2026
Plus de 935 km de bouchons bloquent actuellement le réseau routier, suite aux chutes de neige.
Un record historique qui dépasse les 739 km enregistrés en février 2018. pic.twitter.com/6ItL8pENVd
Plus de 1 600 km d'embouteillages cumulés sur les routes de France. La neige tombée en abondance ce matin et le verglas ont encore crée la pagaille sur les routes.#13h pic.twitter.com/wpmQkBlwc8
— franceinfo (@franceinfo) January 7, 2026
Rail services were also hit hard. At Saint-Lazare station, the TER from Rouen was delayed by 50 minutes, while the train from Le Havre was 1 hour 20 minutes late. At Montparnasse, the TGV to La Rochelle was cancelled, and at Gare de Lyon, all trains from Lyon faced delays of at least an hour.
Rough morning at Paris CDG... snow forcing DGAC to request 40% fewer departures, tons of delays ❄️✈️.
— Fahad Naim (@Fahadnaimb) January 7, 2026
Hate this for travelers. Safety tho. pic.twitter.com/ZyThePfiVh
Some 100 flights were cancelled at Charles de Gaulle Airport and 40 flights at Orly Airport.
Earlier, it was reported that blizzards and strong winds hit Astana on January 6, rescuers urged residents to stay home.
