The president of Ile-de-France Mobilités Valérie Pécresse wants to “take power in transport” in the region, she explains in an interview with the specialized letter Mobilettre, attacking the monopolistic practices of SNCF Réseau and the RATP.
“We must make transport a priority”, judges the former LR presidential candidate, also president of the regional council. “I can’t understand why we don’t have a mobility policy at the national level. The absence of a full-time transport minister is a bad sign,” she tackles. “A president at the national level should make a massive plan for infrastructure, especially for rail infrastructure, from high speed to local services”, judges the elected official, calling for a reform of road management and of SNCF Réseau.
This branch of the SNCF is, according to her, “a monopolistic infrastructure manager who is drowned under the mass of work to be carried out, who no longer has the human resources nor the necessary means, who is almost systematically late and over budget. “.
More generally, Valérie Pécresse regrets “a lack of global reflection on transport”. “The protection of public monopolies is incredible,” she criticizes, challenging Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, who was Minister of Transport and CEO of RATP.
A desire to “accelerate” the opening to competition
In her stronghold of Ile-de-France, she says she is “ready to take power in transport because no one does”. “My main problem is the non-respect of the signed contracts”, she underlines, asking for “penalties”, both for the operators – SNCF and RATP, especially – and for the suppliers of rolling stock – Alstom, in particular – in the event of failure or late delivery.
“Competition must be a triple winner, in quality of service, in price and in social conditions”, argues Valérie Pécresse, while the unions fear that their working conditions will deteriorate.
It even wants to “accelerate” the opening up to competition, but demands that Ile-de-France Mobilités recover the management of the infrastructures of the lines open to other operators (which must in particular go to the RATP for the metro, including including the new Grand Paris Express lines).
The manager also attacks the RATP which keeps monopolistic practices in Ile-de-France “while seeking profits to invest abroad and distribute dividends to the State”. “In reality, the margins required by the RATP are additional costs for the Navigo pass! (the subscription in Ile-de-France, editor’s note)”, she says, judging that “if it is a public monopoly , then it better be managed by IDFM”. “At this stage I do not want to increase the prices of the Navigo pass at all”, further notes Valérie Pécresse, acknowledging that her position is “untenable in the long term” because of inflation.
She is calling for state aid: “The option we have proposed to the government is to reduce the VAT from 10% to 5.5%, which would allow us to freeze prices and absorb the inflation without a drop in resources.” “For the moment, we have no answer,” she notes.