“We have won the battle of ideas. » When presenting the SNCF results, Jean-Pierre Farandou, its CEO, allowed himself a small moment of self-satisfaction. He was pleased to have imposed a figure in the public debate: that of the 100 billion euros of investments necessary over fifteen years to double the share of trains in the movement of people and goods in 2030. It’s all gone a note for the Jean Jaurès Foundation, which he published in February 2022, just before the presidential election. It was called “Iron versus Carbon” and presented this “times 2” as Act II of the railway reform initiated by Emmanuel Macron during his first five-year term, with the transformation of the former public establishment SNCF into a limited company.
“One year after my grade (…), in February 2023, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne announced a plan of 100 billion euros by 2040, and her successor, Gabriel Attal, reiterated in his general policy speech that he wanted to invest massively in rail., considers the CEO. For him, the lines are moving everywhere: “There is real enthusiasm around SERMs, metropolitan regional express services [les RER métropolitains d’Emmanuel Macron], which will allow people to leave their cars in the garage. »
Candidate cities are multiplying. Other projects have been launched, such as the renovation of the Woippy marshalling yard (Moselle) or the implementation of the Grand Projet du Sud-Ouest (GPSO), which will extend the high-speed line between Bordeaux and Toulouse and Bordeaux and Dax, potentially to the Spanish border. “The train is well perceived as a driver of the ecological transition”he concludes.
After the battle of ideas, has he won the financial battle? This is an other story. In France, today, around 10% of travel for people and goods is by train (compared to 20% and 35% in Switzerland). To accelerate and ride the French appetite for rail since the end of Covid-19 and achieve the objectives of doubling the modal share, a lot of money is still needed.
Rejuvenate the rail network
Jean-Pierre Farandou redoes the accounts. The 100 billion euros he is demanding are divided into two packages. The first, 67 billion, is the financing of new projects: from 2 billion to 5 billion for each of the metropolitan RERs, or 37 billion euros, to which are added the 14 billion for GPSO, the accesses to the Lyon-Tunnel. Turin or even the bypass of the Lyon metropolitan area for goods.
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