Several hundred business leaders, elected officials, trade unionists and individuals demonstrated Monday morning at Limoges station against deteriorating rail service between their city and Paris. At 7:30 a.m. there were about 250 people at the Limoges Bénédictins police station, according to the police.
This mobilization, called by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) of Haute-Vienne and the urban community of the Limoges metropolis, follows a letter sent by the CEO of the Legrand group, Benoît Coquart, to the president of the SNCF.
The head of the world leader in electrical equipment, which employs 38,000 people worldwide, wondered in this letter dated November 28 about the “interest” in maintaining its headquarters in Limoges – the only one in New Aquitaine for a company in the CAC 40- after removal of morning trains.
A new link announced
On Saturday, given the magnitude of the reactions, the rail company announced a new Intercity link to Paris at 6:26 am, for a 3:51 am trip “That’s the travel time for a Paris/Aix-en- Provence! We have been mocking our faces for years and the isolation of Limoges is becoming dramatic,” Pierre Massy, president of the ICC, reacted on Monday. “This morning, moreover, this new train was not at the station! A Legrand departure from Limoges would be a tragedy for our territory,” he added, “while we have already lost the army and the status of regional capital to the benefit of Bordeaux “.
Following Legrand’s “coup de pressure”, the elected officials present at the demonstration intended in turn to send “a message to the State and to the SNCF”. “We tell them: ‘Follow your commitments, bring us new rolling stock and not indefinitely. Renovate and maintain the tracks!’ Should we remember the Brétigny disaster?” asked Guillaume Guérin, president (LR) of Limoges Métropole.
Source: BFM TV
