François Bayrou launches a large conference to rethink the financing of infrastructure

“Our transport infrastructure financing model is today out of breath”said Prime Minister, François Bayrou, at the launch in Marseille on Monday, May 5, of a large conference which will last two months and must release funding for transport. “Several tens of billions of euros are necessary to regenerate and modernize our rail network, as well as our roads and highways not conceded”insisted the Prime Minister, while France must find 40 billion savings for its 2026 budget.

The conference, called “Ambition France Transports” and chaired by the former Secretary of State for Transport Dominique Bussereau, must offer scenarios to secure lasting funding with three ambitions: regenerate and modernize transport networks, increase the offer and accelerate the ecological transition. To achieve the objectives set at the third low carbon national strategy, public transport attendance must increase by 25 % by 2030.

The transport sector is responsible for a third of greenhouse gas emissions in France – the vast majority because of the road. Transport infrastructure must also adapt to climate change with heat waves, floods or landslides that accelerate the degradation of works.

“State commitments have continued to accumulate without putting the means opposite”said François Bayrou. In 2023, Elisabeth Borne, then Prime Minister, announced an investment plan of 100 billion euros for the rail by 2040 – a promise that is struggling today to materialize.

“The 100 billion has not been completely budgeted, to say the least. But however, there is something left ”replied the Minister responsible for transport, Philippe Tabarot, stressing the increase in investments for the maintenance of the rail network. An increase in credits only allowed by the benefits of the SNCF. Mr. Bayrou also criticized “The French passion for the production of standards” Who “Makes that the deadlines between the first studies and the commissioning of projects can exceed ten years, or even more”.

The end of highway concessions at the heart of the debates

Ambition France Transports, whose work must end in mid-July, will be organized in the form of four workshops, each bringing together between ten and fifteen participants (elected officials, professionals, economists). One will relate to the financing of daily transport and in particular the SERM (Metropolitan Regional Express Services, the famous Metropolitan RERs announced in 2022). A workshop will concern road mobility and the future of motorway concessions, which all matched between 2031 and 2036; Another rail and a last freight.

The end of the highway concessions, operated in their immense majority by three large groups (Vinci, Eiffage and the Spaniard Abertis), should occupy a large part of the debates. She “Offers a [occasion] unprecedented for the public authorities to redirect toll revenues in a sustainable manner towards transport projects ”noted François Bayrou.

“I remember that in 2005 I was alone to move me when the government had decided to give up its shares in the concessionary companies of highways”he recalled. “The State, I believe it, voluntarily deprived itself of a resource which was the true heritage of the French and which could have abounded in a sustainable way the transport sector to find new investments, new funding”he continued, without wanting to reveal which model would have his preference.

Should we keep the concessions? Go to direct management? Finance the interview by the toll or by the tax? And above all, should we put the road to contribute to finance the rail? No track will be dismissed, ensure the organizers of the conference. Concession companies generate around 13 billion euros in turnover per year. To defend their model, they claim to assume many investments, starting with the installation of electric terminals, the number of which on the motorway areas will have to be multiplied by ten by 2035 to meet the demand, according to one of them.