When the landscape is blurring, it is sometimes useful to gain height. Stacked in the bronca caused by its pension reform, the government is looking at the next decades. After having paved the way for a revival of nuclear and renewable energies, he embarked on the adventure of the rail. This Friday, February 24, he was to announce a large -scale plan at 100 billion euros intended to make the French rail network change. An ambitious scenario, concocted by the infrastructure guidance council, and supported by the CEO of the SNCF, Jean-Pierre Farandou.
The equation is simple. First, the fight against global warming must go through a revolution in transport which alone represents a third of the greenhouse gas emissions. This of course goes through the car and the electric truck but also through a massive postponement of road trips to the train, ten to fifty times less polluting than the automobile. Hence the ambition displayed by the operator’s boss to pass the train share in travel from 10 % to 20 %.
Second, this requires considerable effort to modernize the rail network. Everything has its commitment to the prestigious and very profitable TGV for forty years, the company and the State have undervested in the rest of the network, especially that of proximity and daily life. As a result, the French train, the one that works, is a “rich train”, much more expensive than the car or the plane. Because it is the traveler, on the ticket price, which financed this technological success.
dilapidated
To convince the population, in the name of the safeguard of the planet, to take the way to stations rather than that of the roads, it is therefore necessary to modernize the network outside TGV which is one of the most dilapidated in Europe, with An average age twice as high as that of the Swiss train, the reference in this area.
This eternally delayed project is considerable. Even with excellent financial results as in 2022, the group, and therefore its travelers, cannot finance, however with nearly 3 billion euros per year, that the maintenance of the network, not its modernization. It is up to the State and therefore to the taxpayer to make the rest of the path. Hence the 100 billion.
Even if the invoice will be widely shared – COI considers that communities and Europe will take a good part – this represents a considerable sum, especially with regard to public debt. So we will make choices. The Bordeaux-Toulouse TGV will wait until the RER. A change of perspective.