On the emission side, the train is the good pupil of transport.

With this argument in hand, SNCF CEO Jean-Pierre Farandou calls for "general mobilization" to give the railway the means to double the number of passengers and goods.

“It is with the cap of the boss of the French rail system that I express myself”, he specifies in an interview with AFP, “a few weeks before a presidential election, the result of which will be decisive for our country. ".

“We must act, and act quickly!

»

His speech, published Thursday by the Jean-Jaurès Foundation, is also according to him "the expression of a citizen who thinks that the railway can really contribute to the solution to the climate challenge, to regional planning, to industrial recovery and employment”.

“Without a strong modal shift from road to train, the objective of the Paris agreement will be unattainable,” he pleads.

“You have to be very proactive on the subject (…).

We must act, and act quickly!

»

The train, an ally of the climate

Transport represents 31% of CO2 emissions in France, and the train, which provides 10% of transport, only 0.3%.

Doubling the share of the train would make it possible to achieve between a quarter and a third of the transport decarbonization effort to which France has committed by 2030. The train itself becoming cleaner.

With an “act II” to be undertaken during the next five-year term, act I being the 2018 railway reform which, he insists, made it possible to clean up the finances of the SNCF and to clarify the rules of competition.

In addition to the construction sites in progress to renovate the small lines or to think about light trains.

“We must create lines”

For freight, the ambition to double rail's share of freight transport from 9 to 18% by 2030 has been endorsed by the government and enshrined in law, 18% being the current European average, which Brussels wants meanwhile increase to 30%.

The boss of the SNCF had set the same objective of 2030 for a doubling of passenger traffic, but he has now delayed it a little: “we have to ramp up, create lines”, he says.

"That's why we gave ourselves a slightly broader perspective, in the 2030s."

Several tens of billions

Jean-Pierre Farandou cites pell-mell the construction of a centralized network control to replace the old signal boxes, the deployment of more efficient signaling, "the transformation of TER into RER in the 13 major cities", the freight program and the construction of new lines, such as Bordeaux-Toulouse and Bordeaux-Dax, Montpellier-Perpignan or the Marseille-Nice axis.

Without forgetting the necessary new trains, necessarily greener.

With a special effort to be made in rural areas, in order to offer an alternative to the private car.

In the end, the bill would reach several tens of billions of euros, even if Jean-Pierre Farandou underlines that he "does not (do) the additions".

He notes in passing that neighboring countries invest much more than France in rail.

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  • ecology

  • SNCF

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