“It’s a railway ‘new deal’, commensurate with the crises and challenges of our generations, and with climate change.” Sixteen presidents of regions and local authorities call for “a national modernization and railway equipment plan” in France, with an investment plan of 100 billion euros over ten years, in a column published by the newspaper The world, Saturday October 22.
The tribune has as signatories, among others, the president of the Hauts-de-France region Xavier Bertrand, Valérie Pécresse, president of the Ile-de-France region and Jean Rottner, at the head of the Grand Est region, or even Serge Letchimy, president of the territorial collectivity of Martinique.
“Europe, State, SNCF and communities would commit to invest, over a period of ten years, between 2023 and 2033, 10 billion euros per year on average”, propose these presidents of regions. “Our ambition is clear: to create a transport ‘supply shock’, to upgrade the existing network and modernize it in rural areas as well as in cities, to build new metropolitan RERs, to strengthen industrial and tourist rail motorways towards the ‘Europe.”
“In the spirit of the major unifying initiatives that have modernized France, this is our plan to save the train. Let’s dare together this burst of strategic vision for the future of mobility, for our industry and for our planet.”
Presidents of regionsin a column published by “Le Monde”
“Let’s act together, it’s our collective responsibility”, still launch the signatories of the text. The latter are aimed in particular at Brussels “to invest massively in transport networks”. “This is the meaning of the mechanism for interconnection in Europe, in line with the objectives of the European Green Deal. It is also a powerful lever for the reconquest of European energy sovereignty”, they defend.
In this forum, the presidents of the regions recall that the French rail network “requires, according to Jean-Pierre Farandou, the CEO of the SNCF himself, an investment of 100 billion euros over fifteen years, for its immediate upgrading and to achieve carbon neutrality in 2050″. For the signatories, “Innovation must be at the heart of this project”. “Railway is economic development”, they point out.
They point out the benefits of such a plan for “the relocation of our industry”, which would pass in particular “by the revival of rail freight motorways, the end of procrastination around the Lyon-Turin route or the modernization of the Perpignan-Rungis (Val-de-Marne) primeur line.