On December 16, Anne Hidalgo wrote to the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, in order to“Warning about the major risks posed by the implementation of competition for the bus network on the transport offer and on the organization of the Olympic and Paralympic Games”. She asks that “the opening up of the bus network to competition should be re-examined or, at the very least, postponed well beyond 1er January 2025 ». It is probably no coincidence that the letter left the day after a lunch of the mayor of Paris with Jean Castex, at the headquarters of the RATP.
While she had never spoken so clearly on this subject, Ms.me Hidalgo recalls that competitive bidding “are regularly accompanied by social movements and strikes, further disrupting the supply of transport”. We can already see this in the outer suburbs, which is a few years ahead. Transdev, which operates the Melun Val de Seine bus network, suffered an eight-week strike in October 2021 after winning the tender. As for the RATP, which swept up the Saclay bus market, it was confronted during the summer with the resignation of 15% to 20% of the drivers who did not want to change employers.
Jean Castex, held to neutrality
“Operator changes [à Paris et dans sa petite couronne] will be known prior to the Games, m-alertme Hidalgo in his mail. We cannot afford to disrupt social dialogue or run the risk of a deterioration in working conditions, even though the return to a 100% offer is still not effective, while the RATP is experiencing difficulties on more than 150 bus lines and that 1,500 drivers are still missing. » She received the support of Stéphane Troussel, president (PS) of the department of Seine-Saint-Denis, and the communists of the region, who themselves have long been on this line.
Held to neutrality, Jean Castex does not go as far, but he asks for the creation of an observatory of the opening to competition whose aim would be to check if it “improves customer service” and, if not, to suggest “corrective measures”, he told the Parisian November 30.
Valérie Pécresse, president of Ile-de-France Mobilités, the transport organizing authority, continues to affirm that the timetable for calling into play the RATP monopoly is tenable.