The emotion had gone far beyond Italian borders. On August 14, 2018, the Genoa motorway bridge collapsed, causing the death of 43 people. In the process, French senators took up the sensitive issue of bridges and published, in 2019, a report with the shocking title: “Bridge safety: avoiding a tragedy”. According to this parliamentary work, the black spot in securing structures is located in small communities. The authors of the report then estimated that 18 to 20% of their bridges were in poor condition and likely to pose safety problems for users. In 2020, the State launched, in response, the National Bridges Program (PNP), with the aim of diagnosing, then repairing, the most degraded structures.
Cerema, the public body responsible for supervising this program, presented the results of its expertise on Thursday, November 21, on the sidelines of the Mayors' Fair. In the published document (PDF), which lists and evaluates 63,180 engineering structures (bridges and retaining walls) managed by municipalities of less than 10,000 inhabitants, the The observation drawn up is alarming to say the least: un quarter of the 40,711 bridges audited require “repair work at short notice”because they “present significant or major structural disorders”et 5% of all works of art examined, or nearly 3,000, present “immediate safety problems due to serious damage to the structure”.
These figures do not allow us to know precisely which structures are concerned in France. But “Additional investigation”* obtained confidential information from the National Bridges Program, including part of its database. This information concerns just over 10,000 bridges visited by the design offices mandated by Cerema.
We discover the recommendations drawn up by the experts for each of them, from simple signage to warn of danger to the complete closure of the bridge, including the tonnage limitation of authorized vehicles. These are non-obligatory recommendations, butAre the recommendations, in particular those concerning bridge closures in the event of danger to users, followed?
To find out, “Complement d'investigation” explored the database obtained by only retaining bridges over 7 meters, municipal works being often of modest size. A list of 24 bridges, distributed throughout France, has thus been established. Of these 24 structures, seven were still open at the start of our investigation, mid-October, even though they should have been closed to traffic, according to the experts' recommendations. Since then, at least two municipalities have issued closure orders.
First there is the case of the Vinchy bridge located in a northern commune, Les Rues-des-Vignes. At 42 meters long, it is the largest on the list. For experts, it presents a risk of rupture due to the numerous areas of corrosion and the perforations it contains. On site, however, the traffic is incessant. The “Additional investigation” team was thus able to note in the commune no less than 23 vehicle passages in barely an hour, very heavy agricultural tractor included… UHowever, a limitation on the tonnage of vehicles admitted to circulation on the bridge has been introduced, “except for local services”. And pFor Marc Langlais, the mayor of the town, even if the bridge is in an extremely degraded state, there is no question of issuing a closure order: the town would, according to him, be cut in two. “There is a restaurant on the other side and a few houses a little further on. So there is permanent communication with the village center”he pleads.
Questioned by “Complément d’investigation”, the Minister of Transport, François Durovray, believes that the mayor does not necessarily understand the danger incurred by some of the users: “It's normal for the State to go see the mayor again and tell him 'We have to act'. And if we don't have the capacity to act, we close. We assume in front of the residents that we have to make a detour but it is for their safety.”
Other mayors of Hauts-de-France fear alienating part of their population by taking a restrictive measure for residents. This is the case at Etrœungt, where the Cardets bridge is simply prohibited for vehicles weighing more than two tonnes, but also in Milly-sur-Thérain. In this commune of Oise, Christophe de l'Hamaide, the mayor, did not close the Moimont bridge. But he closed another in the town, which he considers much more worrying: “If I listen to Cerema, I would have to close half of the bridges in Milly. I understand that they do not want to take risks but there is also our daily life, we are here in the countryside, we must be able to move around .”
The majority of municipalities also put forward the financial argument to explain that they do not follow the experts' recommendations. To renovate a bridge, you must put together a financing application and request a grant from the PNP. In Saint-Venant, in Pas-de-Calais, the mayor, André Flajolet, prefers not to close the Chemin du Moulin bridge to traffic while he puts together his financing plan. He emphasizes the financial difficulties of small municipalities.
In 2019, senators deemed it essential that the State massively help municipalities. They estimated the needs at 1.3 billion euros over ten years. But five years later, only 105 million euros have been mobilized under the PNP. According to the Minister of Transport, not all the funds allocated for repairing the bridges have been used. In any case, for Hervé Maurey, co-author of the senatorial report, we are far, very far from the Marshall plan that he had called for with his colleagues. “We see that the account is not there. And when we look, we managed to gradually have credits during the post-Covid recovery plan, to sometimes have unused credits at the end of the year . We obtained, if you allow the expression, cherry stems. As long as we don't have a tragedy, as long as we don't have a catastrophe with deaths, as long as it doesn't make the front page of the television news, nothing happens. And I fear that, unfortunately, we will have to wait until we have this type of drama so that one day we will be told that we are putting X billion on the table for bridges. But it will be too late”, thunders the senator.
In this survey, some responses from municipalities are surprising… In Lot-et-Garonne, it was following our phone call with the community of municipalities that a closure order was issued by the town hall of La Sauvetat-sur-Lède. “This bridge over the La Mascarde stream had gone under the radar, we don’t know why,” admits Jérôme Roso, the director of technical services. In Castelnau d'Auzan Labarrère, the mayor assured us that he had just received notification from Cerema. An order prohibiting traffic on the Béziey bridge has just been issued. In Mayenne, the town of Cossé-le-Vivien affirms through its lawyer that it cannot issue an order prohibiting the use of the bridge crossing the Oudon. According to the lawyer, it risks being canceled following an appeal from local residents who oppose the traffic restrictions.
* “Bridges and roads: the great disrepair” is the new issue of “Complément d’investigation”, broadcast Thursday November 28 at 11 p.m. on France 2, as well as on france.tv and franceinfo.fr.
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