“Let’s remain open to the idea that mobility is almost the basis of our cultures and therefore, how we integrate this mobility in a low-carbon world”, considers Jean Viard

All this weekend, a demonstration to say no to the construction of the A69, especially for ecological reasons – planned project between Toulouse (Upper Garonne) and Castres (Tarn) – asks us the fundamental question of why such a project. Sociologist Jean Viard answers this question.

franceinfo: Why build a highway today? Is it our relationship to time, to space always, which is at stake?

John Viard: What is in question is to connect a basin of 100,000 people, that is to say Castres-Mazamet, with the metropolis of Toulouse. So that’s the main issue. This is why the elected officials defend the project. There had been a study by René Souchon who was the former president of the Auvergne region, because under his mandate, he had been told: we must widen the roads, we must make roundabouts So he had done it and in the end, he still found that we had pushed a lot in this direction. And so, he did an analysis throughout the Auvergne region, north of Castres, to see what had happened by widening the roads. He had realized in fact that the companies remained in the small towns, because the land is cheaper and the population was going to live quite heavily in the small towns.

So the result had not been economically negative, but it had increased traffic because the commute to work had exploded. So that’s the whole question, ie how do people want to live, etc.? There is another thing that must be said, it is that in the demonstrations on pensions, what we have seen is that I would call “the cities of little” and “the French of little ” – I use the expression of theanthropologist and writer Pierre Sansot – that is to say, these are the territories a little far from the TGV and the motorways, which basically feel a little neglected by the modern world, and the modern world is symbolized by the TGV and by the highway. There is an economic problem.

And afterwards, there is obviously the debate in the other direction, environmentalists who defend the inhabitants, because obviously the motorway crosses their territory and therefore damages this territory. And what must also be said is: could we still make big plans today? Me, I started my life as a researcher when we built the Sainte-Croix dam. 10% of French energy comes from dams. Could we still drown a village in the name of non-polluting energy production? So there is a whole debate on that. And at the same time, a society also needs to make big plans, and we don’t know how to debate calmly between all these contradictions.

Maybe in the 60s, 70s, 80s, there wouldn’t have been these disputes. One has the impression that indeed to build a highway, everything would have been allowed or almost?

Yes, but of course it was true with the TGV. So the TGV, there had been disputes because of the noise, problems of neighborhood disputes and moreover, there had been negotiations. And when we take a TGV, we realize that we have made a lot of noise barriers. So there was a result. There is also the problem of night TGVs, which have been limited. So, disputes are not useless. When indeed, what we are debating is to improve the investment for the quality of life of the inhabitants, the ecosystems, etc. But that is the question: are we in the logic of refusal or are we in the logic of democratic negotiation?

And the creation of a section of motorway today really raises a lot of questions. If there are fewer cars, for example, what will the highway of the future be like? We imagine that there are plenty of possible ecological innovations to make roads ecological. There are certainly plenty of questions that arise as a starting point for the creation of a section of motorway today?

Yes, there are even debates about tars which would produce electricity so that cars can recharge when passing over them. So there are lots of innovations. Me, I just want to say one thing: I believe that men are mobile beings. He’s a kind of migrant, he’s a kind of wanderer. So there will always be mobility. And they have developed, and it is certain that we go faster by car, on horseback, by TGV, than by steam train, etc. I think we have to start from the idea that there will always be a moment of mobility. And the question is: how to achieve mobility that is not destructive in terms of carbon? I believe that being against mobility will never work, because man is like that. It is a mobile species. We want to go see the sea, the mountains, space, America… And I think it’s good news, this cultural community that we create thanks to mobility.

For me, the debate is not the end of the highways or the end of the cars. It is indeed how we do so that cars and highways have a minimum ecological impact effectively, and are within the ecological objective that we have set ourselves. It seems to me that we should not get the wrong fight. It’s a bit like the city, the city will not be only “bicycle”, even if it can be “bicycle” a lot, but it depends for which population etc. I believe that on this, it’s the same thing: let’s remain open to the idea that mobility is almost the basis of our cultures and therefore how we integrate this mobility in a low-carbon world.