It is a controversial project that the Toulouse administrative court will examine this Monday: the A69 which will link Castres to Toulouse. A highway that activists do not want and that the public rapporteur has recommended canceling due to lack of major public interest. Yet the residents continue to defend it.
The Toulouse administrative court examines the controversial case of the A69 motorway this Monday morning. On Wednesday, the public rapporteur spoke out in favor of canceling the authorization for the construction of this motorway which should connect Castres and Toulouse. According to him, there is no “compelling reason of major public interest justifying the construction site”.
The court's decision will be rendered within three weeks. The construction of this highway has been the subject of strong opposition from environmentalists for several months. But on site, some residents are impatiently waiting for this highway to open up their territory. And this negative opinion from the Public Rapporteur is worrying as in the small town of Soual in Tarn.
Antonio and Dominique have the feeling of being cut off from the world. They therefore hope that the construction of this highway will not be stopped. “I go to Toulouse three times a week. So I can’t wait for the highway to be built, I will go faster,” says Antonio. “They are more than 60, or 70% of the way along the highway,” adds Dominique. “We have to finish now or we shouldn't have started, otherwise it would be wasted money,” points out Antonio.
The fear of case law for other cases
For this project estimated at 450 million euros, 300 million euros have already been spent. Many Tarn business leaders are in favor of this connection, such as Gauthier Castan, transport specialist in Public Works. He invested a lot.
“More than one million 200 thousand euros on equipment. We made a huge recruitment effort for our small structure, around 17-18 people to work on the site. So if there is a halt on the A69, for us it would be catastrophic,” he laments.
The mayor of Soual, Jean-Luc Alibert, does not want to believe this hypothesis which would, according to him, be “terrible for the economy”.
“This would mean that on other projects, recognized as being of public utility, we could have a sort of jurisprudence which would apply, and which would in fact stop construction sites, which is unacceptable”, he denounces. .
The elected official alludes in particular to the future high-speed line project between Bordeaux and Toulouse.
Jean-Wilfrid Forquès with Guillaume Descours
