The project is now on the right track: Prime Minister Jean Castex has announced that the State is committing financially to the tune of 4.1 billion euros in favor of the high-speed line (LGV) connecting Bordeaux and Toulouse. The commitment is written in a letter sent Tuesday April 27 to the socialist president of the Occitanie region, Carole Delga, and to the mayor Les Républicains de Toulouse, Jean-Luc Moudenc, according to the information of La Dépêche du Midi, confirmed by The world.
The two elected officials co-signed a press release on Sunday denouncing a “France at two speeds”, after the announcement by the State of financing to the tune of 1.38 billion euros for the new high-speed line (LGV) Marseille-Nice the previous week.
Contribution of the European Union
In his letter to elected officials, published by the regional daily, the Prime Minister “Wishes to recall the strong involvement of the State in the development of public transport”. As such, he announces, that in addition to national funding, “A contribution from the European Union will be sought up to 20% of the total cost of the project”, for a total of six billion euros. Local communities will also be called upon. A project company involving the Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Occitanie regions, and the metropolitan areas of Toulouse and Bordeaux, will be set up to carry this LGV, announces the Prime Minister.
The work will also be facilitated by a court decision handed down on April 23 by the Council of State. Associations, opposed to the high-speed line project, had indeed asked the administrative justice to cancel the declaration of public utility of 2016 concerning the railway development of the north of Toulouse, as part of the LGV project. They were definitively rejected by the supreme administrative court.
The new line, whose work could begin in 2024 for commissioning in 2030, will make it possible to reach Toulouse from Bordeaux in one hour and five minutes, and from Paris in just over three hours compared to four hours currently.
Acceleration of the Montpellier-Perpignan project
In this letter to elected officials, Jean Castex also let it be known that he had “Decided to accelerate the Montpellier-Béziers section”, specifying that a “Public inquiry will begin before the end of 2021” to study the possibility of declaring this section of the Montpellier-Perpignan line of public utility in 2022.
The president of the Occitanie region had indeed denounced in her letter that “This part of the territory of our country awaits the high speed, promised by the State for more than thirty years”, stressing that “Perpignan is more than five and a half hours from Paris by train, and sees its air supply reduced by the decision of Air France to cut several daily connections”.
“Beyond political divisions”
“It is with great satisfaction for our territory and the inhabitants that we welcome the commitments of Jean Castex, reacted in a joint statement Carole Delga and Jean-Luc Moudenc, Wednesday. This result is the fruit of significant work and the gathering, across political divisions, of elected officials from the metropolis, the departmental council, the region. (…) who were able to create a collective to put this structuring project back among the priorities of the State, after it was put to sleep in 2017. ”
For his part, the president of the departmental council of Haute-Garonne, Georges Méric, expressed in a press release “Its satisfaction to see finally move forward this structuring project and long awaited by an entire territory”, recalling that the department had already participated in the financing of the Tours-Bordeaux section of the LGV Paris-Toulouse.