CHRONIC. The rail pass, a promise kept or betrayed?

Clément Viktorovitch returns every week to the debates and political issues. Sunday April 7: the creation of the rail pass, a €49 package for young people to travel in France on regional and Intercity trains.

What a story ! This rail pass almost did not exist: on Wednesday April 3 on franceinfo, the Minister of Transport Patrice Vergriete explained that the project was at the very least postponed, due to lack of agreement from the Normandy, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Hauts-de-France. When suddenly, there was a twist: in the afternoon, we learned that Hervé Morin, Laurent Wauquiez and Xavier Bertrand had finally given the green light. The rail pass will take place!

This was a promise made by President Macron last September. This is what he replied when the journalist Hugo Travers asked him if he was considering importing the Deutschlandticket, the German rail pass, into France: “Yes, I am in favor of it. And I asked the Minister of Transport to launch the same system with all the regions which are ready to do so.”

Promise kept six months later… at least, in appearance. Because the Deutschlandticket is a pass at €49 per month, that is, but open to all Germans, valid all year round, and giving access to all public transport, including those in cities, at The only exception is mainline trains. The government therefore took up the German idea, but adapted the terms. We can’t blame him… except that Clément Beaune, the former Minister of Transport, said last September on France 2 that “the idea is to have something a bit like what is done in Germany or in other European countries, that is to say very simple, open to all, which allows unlimited travel. ” We are very far from the system finally adopted, which is reserved for under 27s, only for the months of July and August.

A minimum measure

So, of course, for the moment this is only an experiment. Except that the only extension in question at the moment is a possible widening of the measure to the Île-de-France region, which is currently excluded. No one is talking about a pass for everyone valid all year round anymore. We can therefore, it seems to me, legitimately ask ourselves: is this a promise kept or a promise betrayed?

Let’s take a look at the amounts involved: this French rail pass will cost 15 million euros. To give you an order of magnitude: according to the Rail White Paper, written by environmentalist MEP Karima Delli in collaboration with numerous experts, a real rail pass, universal and year-round, would cost between 500 million and three billion euros, or 30 to 200 times more. Or, since we are talking about a measure targeted at young people: the generalization of the school uniform, which is still envisaged by the government, would also cost billions of euros. 15 million euros, on the scale of the state budget, is not even the thickness of the line. However, if the rail pass costs nothing, it is by definition that it does not bring much compared to the reduction offers already offered to young people. In other words, here we have a measure which will not change the daily lives of the French, but which the government will still be able to take advantage of.

We are faced with an announcement effect, which arouses the hope of citizens and attracts the attention of the media, before being so reduced that it becomes an empty shell… but of which the government can still affirm that ‘it has been accomplished. So of course, this is nothing new. But that doesn’t mean we should stop being outraged about it. Political communication should be the art of saying what you do well. Unfortunately, too often, it has become the art of not doing what you are told.