“Your controversial and unjustified attacks against the Métropole de Lyon and Sytral Mobilités are not up to the challenges or your role and do not help to find a peaceful climate conducive to the resumption of service.” Bruno Bernard left the meeting at the prefecture on Tuesday angry, following the violence of the weekend.
Following this violence, service to Rillieux was interrupted until Tuesday, November 12 in the morning, at best. A withdrawal of service of 37 stops which infuriates billionaire mayor Alexandre Vincendet. He appealed against this decision before the administrative court.
Read also on Tribune de Lyon: TCL. Buses no longer run in Rillieux due to the fires on Friday November 1st
Sytral in fact cited, among the explanations for its decision, the recurrence of problems on Rillieux. “Since February 2023, to deal with these risks, we have had to carry out 162 diversions and line limitations, only in the Rillieux sector, to avoid new attacks and ensure the safety of journeys. Concretely, this means that on nearly 40 evenings in a little over a year, lines C5, C2 and 33 had to be diverted for security reasons”explained the president of Sytral on Twitter.
“We punish 30,000 people for a bus stop and 20 thugs”
For the mayor of Rillieux, this is false. “The buses haven’t been bothered for a long time. There, what ignited the powder was the arrest of three people for drug trafficking earlier in the evening. But the problem here only concerns 100 meters in La Velette, on Avenue Général-Leclerc. We punish 30,000 people for a single bus stop and 20 thugs, it’s scandalous”.
Especially since the former deputy criticizes Bruno Bernard under his hat as president of the Metropolis for not having listened to him when Rillieux asked him “for years we have been removing glass silos and burying household waste containers”which easily serve as obstacles on roads, projectiles, and material to start fires.
In return, Bruno Bernard criticizes him for no longer inviting Sytral to meetings of the Local Security and Delinquency Council (CLSPD), including the last meeting “took place in May 2022”.
“It is clear that the situation is deteriorating in Rillieux”
A meeting between the different parties was organized at the prefecture on Tuesday, and it was following this that Bruno Bernard, as president of Sytral, decided to send a letter on Wednesday to the mayor of Rillieux. He recalls that “four TCL network buses have been set on fire in your municipality since 2021, including three in 2024 alone. These fires all took place according to the same process, which is not found in any other municipality in the metropolis (…) In the first quarter of 2024, we have already recorded more than 70 limitations or deviations. (…) It is clear that the situation is deteriorating in Rillieux. It is the city of the Metropolis which concentrates the most incidents having an impact on the operation of buses”.
Read also on Tribune de Lyon: Alexandre Vincendet chooses the municipal mandate of Rillieux-la-Pape and leaves the Métropole de Lyon
An assertion which contradicts the figures put forward by its mayor, for whom the official delinquency figures have been constantly improving for several years.
On the question of the denial of public service linked to the non-serviceability of stops, Sytral considers it necessary. If only because without this decision, the agents would certainly have “triggered their right of withdrawal. This preventive measure made it possible to maintain service to Rillieux and the rest of the metropolis.”
So that the service resumes normally next Tuesday, Sytral is awaiting reinforcements from a national or municipal police patrol “permanently in the La Velette sector in the evening from 7 p.m. to the closure of the TCL network, until the beginning of 2025. This measure would reassure our drivers.”
