from the endless construction site at Austerlitz station to the widespread use of clean buses

2023-11-04 11:00:15
Image taken from the program “Parigo” on the Austerlitz station, in Paris. FRANCE 3 PARIS ÎLE-DE-FRANCE

FRANCE.TV – ON DEMAND – MAGAZINE

Austerlitz is to train stations what the Sagrada Familia is to cathedrals: eternally unfinished. It is therefore a daring audience bet to dedicate an episode of “Parigo”, the show dedicated to mobility in the Ile-de-France region on France 3, to the least busy of the six major Parisian stations, with between 19 and 24 million passengers annually. . Unless we take into account that it has been hosting the Paris-Nice night train since 2021, that its glass roof inaugurated in 1867 is currently being restored, with the replacement of 10,000 glass plates one by one, and that the construction site has started there. twenty years ago should end in 2027. Finally! All told in less than a quarter of an hour flat.

Read the review: “#Parigo”, the France 3 show that runs on zero pollution

For eight seasons, journalist Bertrand Lambert has played “Parigo” every week, with humor and pugnacity. All episodes broadcast since 2022 are available for seven years on the platform France.tv.

The themes covered are often of interest beyond Ile-de-France, such as “Clean buses for 2025? » At the depot of the busiest bus line in Europe, the Trans-Val-de-Marne, Bertrand Lambert assesses the reliability of vehicles running on biomethane (how long do they take to recharge? Is it really a clean fuel?). Before going to Versailles, where the few hydrogen buses used serve as a test for the entire sector.

Core target

Each episode follows the same plot: an introduction, a “look back”, reports on a construction site, in a train or during tests, meetings and an interview. Some may interest visitors, such as the story of “La gare Saint-Michel”, with a surprising return to the archives on the complex digging of metro line 4 under the Seine, or “Transporting supporters”, the eternal subject, from the Rugby World Cup to the 2024 Olympic Games.

Read the decryption: How the suburbs juggle transport

Among the subjects more national than “Parigots”, we note “Car obesity” and “Motorized two-wheelers: will paid parking become the norm? », which looks back at the origins of paid parking since 1971, the year the first parking meters were installed in Paris. “Yes, this will become the norm”, warns David Belliard, deputy at Paris City Hall in charge of transport. This regular on “Parigo” is also present in “The great Parisian places are reinventing themselves”.

However, the show does not forget its core target. “New RER E: an extension to the West? » (up to La Défense) is characteristic. Funny in its presentation, it is less so when it addresses the delays of the construction site and the additional cost of 1.7 billion euros. Extremely rare, the SNCF also refused permission to film. But is there a job site that finishes on time? Definitely very strong, Bertrand Lambert found it, in « RER, tram, metro: much-awaited extensions ».

“Pairing”, It ismission by Laurent Brun led by Bertrand Lambert (France, 2023, 14 minutes) Available on France.tv.

Catherine Pacary