2023-06-17 06:23:10
Authorization or not to demonstrate, tensions are to be expected near the construction site of the railway line in the Maurienne valley from Friday evening 16 to Sunday 18 June. United under the banner “Stop at Lyon-Turin. The awakening of the mountains », a dozen organizations have decided to maintain their international gathering, despite its ban by the Savoy prefecture. Political parties (LFI, EE-LV) or unions (Sud-rail, Solidaires, the Trade Union Confederation, etc.) rub shoulders with associations and collectives such as the Italian No-Tav and the Uprisings of the Earth, threatened with dissolution by the government.
Prefectural ban
Anticipating violent clashes such as during the rally against the mega-basins of Sainte-Soline at the end of March 2023, the prefect of Savoie François Ravier decided to ban the demonstration for risk of “serious disturbances to public order”. This mobilization likely to bring together “more than 3,000 people, including more than 400 radicals” do “fear of intrusions and damage on construction sites”he justified Thursday, June 15 in front of the press.
The organizers of the rally immediately took legal action against this ban, qualified as “denial of democracy” or“attack on the right to demonstrate”. While the administrative court of Grenoble was to rule on Friday afternoon, the organizers promised to maintain, in any case, “symbolic actions” in places that would be fixed at the last moment.
An ecological threat for opponents
That elected officials and environmental defenders oppose a project of 270 km of high-speed railroads (including 70% of track in France) intended to relieve road traffic in the valley seems counter-intuitive. The purpose of the project is indeed to“organize a transfer of almost a million weights during the road to the rail”repeats Telt, the binational company of the Lyon-Turin Euroalpin Tunnel.
But more than the finality, the opponents denounce “ecological impacts” of a building site “titanic railway, involving the drilling of 260 km of galleries through the Alpine massifs”.
According to the Vivre et Agir en Maurienne association, the 57.5 km of tunnel (including 45 km in France) intended to cross the Alps between Saint-Jean-de-Mauricienne and Suce threatens to drain already low groundwater and to modify the circulation of water in the rock. Like a drying up of water in the stream and the waterfall of the Chapelle Saint-Benoît, near Aussois, observed by the inhabitants.
Ecologists also accuse this work of “destroy the mountain for economic interests, to the detriment of the living”. “The mountain is not a Swiss cheese”, s’insurge l’association Mountain Wilderness.
According to a “parliamentary popular commission of inquiry” initiated by the parties and unions taking part in the mobilization, the “pharaonic project” of “second railway line between Lyon and Turin”would generate “1,500 hectares of agricultural and natural areas to be developed” or « the drainage of 100 million cubic meters of groundwater to be planned each year”.
An economic stake variously appreciated
Judge ” essential “ twenty years ago by the European Union, which has undertaken to finance 40% of the 9.6 billion euros necessary for the construction of the tunnel alone (on a project now estimated at 26 billion euros in total), Lyon-Turin is now supported by the Italian government of Giorgia Meloni, who hopes that France will keep its commitments to finance the 150 km of access roads between Lyon and Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne.
A large majority of mayors of the metropolis of Lyon, mainly of law and of the center, called on Tuesday June 13 to “the sacred union” to defend the Lyon-Turin project, from which they expect benefits in terms of regional economic development, and shorter travel times: Lyon would then be 1 hour 47 minutes from Turin (compared to 3 hours 47 at present) and Milan, 4 h 30 from Paris (instead of 7).
In a joint text, they accuse the metropolitan executive, dominated by EELV and LFI, of wanting “derail the project” by presenting it “as a danger to the planet”. They also urge the government to respect its commitments.
Less expensive alternatives offered
While work around the tunnel has started and the government must take a decision on the route of the 150 km of access roads to the tunnel under construction, the mayors are worried about seeing the project transformed into a « Dijon-Turin ». It is one of the options of report of the Infrastructure Orientation Councilrecommends postponing the project to 2042 and favoring the historic Dijon-Modane line between now and then.
————
#railway #line #divisive