Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne will announce, on the occasion of the presentation of the report of the Council for Orientation of Infrastructures (COI), Friday, February 24, the ambition of the government to devote 100 billion euros of investments by to 2040 for rail transport, according to information communicated by Matignon to Agence France-Presse.
The amount announced, which corresponds to the estimate of the needs launched by the CEO of the SNCF Jean-Pierre Farandou (he envisaged this expenditure over fifteen years) would not, if the scenario of the CIO is followed by the government, only deducted from the State budget but shared with local authorities and operators. The government wants to have a precise planning of transport infrastructure investments by June, after having discussed it with the regions and partners concerned.
Giving priority to the modernization of the rail network and daily transport, the scenario also wants to emphasize the renovation of roads and waterways, but excludes the rapid realization of “Structuring projects eagerly awaited by some, (…) road or motorway”according to an almost final version published by the news site Context in January. It provides for a marked increase in the means released by the State, from 2023 and until 2042. The bill would be 84.3 billion euros over the period 2023-2027.
One of the first concretizations of this rebalancing of the State’s commitment in the train compared to other forms of mobility would be, according to the same source, the launch of “Metropolitan RER” in large French cities, which Emmanuel Macron said he wanted in November in a video posted on YouTube. The announcement surprised elected officials and local authorities, who had not been involved in consultations before this announcement by the President of the Republic.