2023-06-14 17:56:02
Spanish trains are coming to the French landscape this summer. Renfe, SNCF’s former partner on certain transnational routes, confirmed its imminent arrival by announcing aggressive prices for its two Franco-Spanish routes: Lyon-Barcelona and Marseille-Madrid. In a press release published on Wednesday, the carrier announces a one-way ticket from 9 euros for domestic journeys made between French stations served by Iberian trains: Perpignan, Narbonne, Béziers, Montpellier, Nîmes, Avignon and Aix-en-Provence.
The trip will cost 19 euros for those who want to sunbathe in Spain from the South West stations. To leave from Lyon and reach Barcelona, or from Marseille to Madrid, you still have to add 10 euros, for tickets from 29 euros. A price that remains particularly competitive.
Two medium-term daily connections
The start date of service is not yet known. First scheduled for June, Renfe postponed it to July. “They lacked a security certificate to circulate on the French network. They got it only last week, ”says an actor in the file. The railway company would start with six round trips per week on each line, then two daily connections in the medium term. Before launching in the spring of 2024 on Paris – Lyon (where Trenitalia is already competing with the SNCF).
In the meantime, this announcement is unlikely to pull SNCF prices down for the moment. Renfe is not in direct competition with tricolor trains on these lines. The French company abandoned these correspondences, in February 2022, after the rupture of its partnership with, precisely, Renfe. It provided for a collaboration between the two to serve France and Spain. At the time of the divorce, the two companies planned to “share the cake”: Paris-Barcelona for SNCF, Lyon-Barcelona and Marseille-Madrid for Renfe.
Even if Renfe ventures into the territory of its rival, the rail war remains mainly localized in Spain where the SNCF hunts directly on Renfe territory with its Ouigo on the Barcelona-Madrid route. With these spectacular prices and while waiting for the arrival of Iberian AVEs on the Lyon-Paris route in 2024, the Spaniards are nimbly slipping their first foot into the door of the French market.
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