No Eurostar service from Brussels to south of France this summer

Eurostar, the high-speed train operator most known for its London-Brussels and London-Paris trains, will not run direct services between Brussels and the south of France this summer, it has announced.

This information has been confirmed by Eurostar, following a report on the Dutch website treinreiziger.nl.

The ‘Eurostar Sun’ used to operate every Saturday for seven weeks in July and August, stopping in Valence, Avignon, Aix-en-Provence and Marseille.

However, the high-speed rail operator, which merged with Thalys under the Eurostar name in September 2023, is now suspending this service.

“Eurostar has decided not to operate the direct Eurostar Sun between Brussels and Marseille this summer,” spokesperson Cordula Descheemaeker said.

“Eurostar’s focus remains on its main stations and on the connections between city centres such as Brussels, Amsterdam, Paris, Cologne, and London.”

Passengers can still travel direct from Brussels to the south of France with the French high-speed train TGV Inoui, while the ‘Eurostar Snow’ service to winter sports destinations in the French Alps is expected to run as usual next winter.

Meanwhile, anyone wanting to travel to Northern France via the new low-cost Brussels-Paris Ouigo service, will have an extra stop, Saint-Quentin, from mid-April.

Currently, the Ouigo Brussels-Paris trains stop in Mons, Belgium, and in Aulnoye-Aymeries and Creil in France.

“From 13 April one of the three trains, which leaves around noon, will also stop in Sant-Quentin in both directions,” said Dimitri Temmerman, spokesperson for Belgian’s rail operator SNCB, which partly owns Eurostar.

French railway company SNCF’s low-cost brand Ouigo was launched in December 2024. It runs three times a day between Brussels and Paris. Its journey time is about three hours, more than twice as long as the high-speed (but also frequently high-cost) Eurostar service of 83 minutes.

The additional stop is being added at the request of the French railways. It will mean that passengers in Brussels will be able to reach Saint-Quentin in around two hours 15 minutes, instead of changing at least twice, normally via Tournai and Lille-Flandres, with a journey time of three hours 45 minutes.

Photo: Philippe Alès/Wikimedia. Licensed under Creative Commons