The president of the SNCF, Jean-Pierre Farandou, requested this Wednesday a financing plan with permanent resources and “a multi-year programming law” to guarantee the execution of the 100,000 million euro plan promised for the railway. “If it is not financed, this project will not be carried out,” warned Jean-Pierre Farandou, during a hearing before the Finance Commission of the National Assembly.
The project, announced at the end of February by Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, promises 100,000 million euros of investment for the railways until 2040, an effort that the president of the SNCF has been defending for many months. It is necessary to appeal “to all accessible sources of financing”, he stressed.
Jean-Pierre Farandou thus cited the “new European taxation around carbon quotas”, but also taxes, which could weigh on the types of transport that have a “more negative impact on the environment”. “I am thinking of air transport, I am thinking of heavy vehicles and we also have highways that are an important source of financing”, offered the president of the railway group. According to him, “part of the manna from the highway could be used to finance the railway.”
4,000 million euros of investment per year are expected
Local authorities must also be asked to finance regional express service projects, the famous “metropolitan RER” that Emmanuel Macron has called for with “regional trains every quarter of an hour” to “irrigate” the large metropolises, according to Jean-Pierre Farandou. The SNCF will also take its part “up to its real but limited contributory capacity” and with a “red line: not to return to the deficit”, insisted Jean-Pierre Farandou.
The head of the public group finally said that he hopes “a broad consensus between parties can create the necessary conditions for a multi-year programming law” in order to consolidate “the implementation of this future rail transport plan in our country.” This foresees in particular the regeneration and modernization of the network, whose average age is 30 years in France, “where in Germany it is 17 years and in Switzerland, which is a European reference in rail terms, it is 15 years”. “.
Thus, the annual investment must go from 2,800 million euros, an amount considered insufficient, to nearly 4,000 million euros per year, which would make it possible to “keep the entire network in good condition”, insisted Jean-Pierre Farandou.
Source: BFM TV
