Bonneuil-sur-Marne (France) (AFP)

The State intends to develop rail highways, in particular by relaunching the Perpignan-Rungis primeurs train, and making tolls free for freight trains, Prime Minister Jean Castex announced on Monday as part of the revival of rail freight. .

"There are tolls to take the paths (...) that freight trains take with passenger trains, so we have decided that these tolls should be free until the end of 2020 and a division by two (...), in 2021, of the price of these tolls, "Mr. Castex told the press during a trip to the combined transport site of Bonneuil-sur-Marne (Val-de- Marl).

"It is an extremely strong signal that the government is giving and it is a first step in what I will call the rail reconquest plan," he added.

This represents 63 million euros in 2020 and another 63 million in 2021, according to Matignon.

Thanks to these incentives, the state hopes to see 20,000 fewer heavy goods vehicles on the roads in 2021, corresponding to 425,000 tonnes of CO2 emitted less.

The government also has "firm intention to reopen and develop rail highways," added Jean Castex.

It will set up a start-up aid system "of up to 35 million euros" per year in order to "facilitate the setting up of projects", specifies a press release from the Ministry of Ecological Transition, published on Monday.

Calls for projects will be launched by the end of the year for the Bayonne-Cherbourg, Sète-Calais and Perpignan-Rungis lines, which the State would like to see extended from Antwerp to Barcelona.

"You have before you a Prime Minister who was bruised by the Perpignan-Rungis affair, the primeurs train", suspended for a year, confided Mr. Castex, elected municipal in Prades (Pyrénées-Orientales).

Until July 2019, the "primeurs train", made up of refrigerated wagons, transported fruit and vegetables produced in the Pyrénées-Orientales to the Rungis market every night. The line was to be relaunched at the end of 2019 to the multimodal platform of Valenton (Val-de-Marne), rather than to Rungis where the station must be modernized, but customers have not rushed.

Jean Castex, who was accompanied by SNCF CEO Jean-Pierre Farandou, and ministers Emmanuelle Wargon (Housing), Barbara Pompili (Ecological transition) and Jean-Baptiste Djebbari (Transport), also said he wanted to develop combined rail transport. road, because "it is the future".

"We must also restructure the management of rail freight, improve its competitiveness," he said without further clarification.

One of the challenges is the modernization of the rail network, to which the government is spending "several billion euros per year until 2022", according to Mr. Djebarri.

In this context, Ivan Stempezynski, president of the national combined transport group, asked Jean Castex to give SNCF Réseau, track manager, the means to fulfill his ambitions.

In Occitania, the announcement of the revival of rail freight was very very well received while "the region has been mobilizing for years on this subject", reacted Jean-Luc Gibelin (PC) vice-president in charge of mobility.

"The free toll in 2020 and at 50% in 2021, it is a good idea in the direction of the request of the President (of the Occitanie Region Carole) Delga for road tolls", continues the regional adviser.

Finally, Mr. Gibelin wants "a real study of a rail link between the Saint-Charles market in Perpignan and the Rungis market".

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© 2020 AFP