Paris (AFP)

The TGV, which is 40 years old this year, has revolutionized the geography of travel in France by reducing journey times, as much as it has transformed the SNCF, even if entire swathes of the territory have remained apart.

Emmanuel Macron must blow out the 40 candles on Friday for the SNCF's favorite train, launched by Georges Pompidou, built under Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and inaugurated on September 22, 1981 by François Mitterrand between Paris and Lyon.

In particular, it must unveil a full-scale model of the motor of the TGV M, long called "TGV of the future", which the public company intends to put on the rails in 2024.

This new TGV ordered from Alstom will not be faster than the last trains running on the French network - 320 km / h -, but the SNCF wants it more comfortable, more flexible, more ecological, more economical.

Since 1981, the group has bought 549 trainsets for around 15 billion euros, notes its CEO Jean-Pierre Farandou.

"In total, the SNCF has invested more than 100 billion euros for the TGV. It is a considerable investment in the service of the French economy and the territories. With the TGV, the SNCF has created wealth and changed the life of the French, "he told AFP.

A TGV on the Paris-Lyon line, near Mâcon, April 26, 2006 MARTIN BUREAU AFP

The TGV was also, before the Covid-19 shortage, a very profitable activity.

But this massive investment also weighed on the accounts of the company, whose huge debt has long been a concern.

Mireille Faugère, who ran high-speed activities for a long time, believes that the TGV saved the train in France, giving it a big boost.

"High speed has completely put passenger rail back into the world of transport. I think the main lines would have disappeared if it had not been for high speed," she notes.

"At that time everyone was looking towards the air and the car."

- SNCF at two speeds -

The TGV put Paris at 2 hours 40 minutes from Lyon in 1981, then 2 hours in 1983, against 3 hours 40 for the fastest trains before.

And attendance soared from 7.2 million travelers in 1982 to 20.1 million in 1991 and 40.8 million in 2012.

The plaque commemorating the speed record broken in 1981 by the TGV, photographed at the Technicentre in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, February 26, 2021, 40 years later BERTRAND GUAY AFP / Archives

For Florence Brachet Champsaur, head of the heritage service at the SNCF, the TGV is also synonymous with "democratization of speed".

"The fastest trains were often reserved for business customers, in first class with supplement," she recalls.

"The TGV revolution also means having trains all day long and more seats in second than first."

Democratization, of course, but also after a few years the introduction of pricing often considered too expensive - until recent corrections.

One of the keys to the TGV's success is also to be compatible with the rest of the network: trains can continue their journey beyond new lines, such as to Toulouse, Geneva or Nice.

This flexibility has made it possible to gradually weave the TGV web from Paris, to the Atlantic, the North, the South-East, the East, the Benelux, Great Britain ... With an (imperfect) bypass of the capital allowing fairly rapid province-province connections, but the elimination of many cross-roads, and a much poorer service to many small towns.

Guillaume Durand, transport specialist at Wavestone, sees the TGV "as a tool which has brought cities closer together, in France as in Europe, and profoundly reshaped the accessibility of certain territories".

TGVs parked at Gare de Lyon, April 8, 2020 THOMAS COEX AFP / Archives

According to him, this Alstom train is also "an industrial flagship, a pure product of French engineering - just like nuclear power or the Ariane rocket - which has evolved over the decades", and a mode of transport own.

The other side of the coin: the rise of the TGV has created a "two-speed SNCF", with high-speed lines (LGV) being the subject of all attention to the detriment of the rest of the conventional network and daily trains.

This is why Emmanuel Macron announced in 2017 a "pause" in the construction of LGV.

But now is the time to relaunch certain projects, starting with Bordeaux-Toulouse and Montpellier-Perpignan.

The French high-speed network currently extends over 2,700 km, the fourth in the world after China, Spain and Japan.

© 2021 AFP