TRUE OR FALSE. Have France and Europe invested twice as much in roads as in trains in recent years?

In the middle of the European campaign, the environmentalist candidate Marie Toussaint affirms that “France, like Europe, has invested twice as much in recent years in the road as in the rail”. This is rather true for Europe but in France the trend has recently been reversed.

She wants a “massive plan in the railway”. The head of the Europe Ecologie-Les Verts list for the European elections, Marie Toussaint, affirms on France Inter that “France, like Europe, has invested twice as much in recent years in road than in rail”. True or false ?

Marie Toussaint is based on a vast study carried out by the environmental NGO Greenpeace and published in June 2023. The association has compiled, over thirty years, all the public investment expenditure of each European country in terms of road and rail infrastructure , based in particular on official figures published by the International Transport Forum at the OECD. All European Union countries, Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom were analyzed. The study therefore compares budget envelopes; it does not relate this expenditure to the number of kilometers of train or road in each country. Furthermore, it only compares public spending.

Europe invests more in road than in train, but the gap is narrowing

According to this study, Europe, as a whole, invested 66% more between 1995 and 2018 in road compared to rail. That is to say a little less than twice as much. The cumulative length of the motorway network increased by 60% between 1995 and 2020, going from 51,500 to 82,500 kilometers. Over the same period, the rail network lost 6.5%. But over a more recent period, between 2018 and 2021, Europe invested 34% more in the road network compared to the rail network. We therefore see that the gap is narrowing.

In France, we cannot say that the State invests “twice as much in road than in rail in recent years”, as Marie Toussaint does. Over the first period studied, from 1995 to 2018, it is true that France invested twice as much in roads. But over the most recent period, between 2018 and 2021, Greenpeace notes a reversal of the trend: France has started to invest a little more in rail, 10% more than in road.

In France, a reversal of the trend

Investments are increasing, as evidenced by the 100 billion euros plan by 2040 for rail, announced in February 2023. The government wants in particular to develop the night train and the metropolitan RER. Even if investments in small lines are increasing, as this senatorial report shows, users denounce a still glaring imbalance between the efforts made on TGVs and those made on local lines. The latter are aging, more dilapidated, with less regular trains. According to a report produced by Prefect Philizot in 2020 and requested by the government, 40% of small lines in France are threatened with closure.