France awoke this morning to “Black Tuesday” as mass rail strikes brought much of the country’s trains to a halt in the sternest test yet of Emmanuel Macron’s reformist mettle.

With just one in eight fast TGV trains running nationally and one in five regional trains, commuters and tourists alike face an arduous task reaching their destinations as national operator SNCF warned of “severe disruption”.

Platforms at Gare du Nord, Paris's busiest railway station, were so packed that some commuters fell onto the tracks and had to be helped back up.

Other stations were all but deserted this morning. “People anticipated. I thought there would be a huge crowd,” one commuter in Nice told AFP.

London to Paris and Brussels Eurostars was also affected, with three quarters of trains still running but 15 cancelled and some scheduled times and departures changed.