After three years of renovation work, the station Matabiau of Toulouse has finally been inaugurated. Elected worst station in France according to a barometer of the SNCF this summer and after years of difficulty, it finally revealed itself before the eyes of elected officials, officials and the general public. But not only. Indeed, the railway workers gathered in inter-union were also invited to the inauguration. “A Toulouse-style inauguration” and a “ritual of passage” had fun commenting on the mayor of Toulouse, Jean-Luc Moudenc.
This inauguration was therefore made under the boos of several hundred railway workers, accompanied by activists from Extinction Rebellion mobilized against the A69. “Gravediggers of public services”, “You have the pockets that touch the ground”, shouted the demonstrators to the representatives of the SNCF, including its CEO Jean-Pierre Farandou, and the local elected officials present.
“The station becomes a business”
They denounced an unsuitable renovation, in particular with the place given to shops in the new station, while ticket offices were closed or replaced by digital terminals. “The station is becoming more of a business than a work tool for railway workers”, commented to AFP Mario Vivancos, 34, CGT union representative of railway workers based in Toulouse. “We don’t think about the staff at all: there is no water point or toilet for them, they will have to go upstairs”, also regrets his CFDT counterpart Cédric Ambroziewicz, 44 years old.
Built in the middle of the 19th century, a period of the railway’s boom, the station was renovated to adapt it to the number of travellers, the SNCF expecting a “tripling” of attendance, by 50,000 people per day. Currently.
Insufficient accessibility measures according to Handisocial
It “needed a good facelift”, noted Jean-Pierre Farandou, stressing the importance of this station in the context of the construction of the Bordeaux-Toulouse high-speed line, work on which should begin at the end of year or early 2024. The president of the Occitanie region, Carole Delga, took the opportunity to reaffirm her wish for a direct rail link between Toulouse and Barcelona, “absolutely necessary” according to her.
These three years of renovation also aimed to make the station more accessible to people with reduced mobility, by installing lifts and enlarging the underground access to trains, for example. Insufficient measures, according to the association for the defense of disabled people Handisocial. The latter denounced several defects such as the lack of accessibility of the control terminals for people in wheelchairs. “I expect something concrete,” hammered the president of the association Odile Maurin, taking Jean-Pierre Farandou directly to task. The work, the cost of which is estimated at 42 million euros, also made it possible to renovate the joinery of this building classified as a historic monument, as well as the canopy – the glazed projection above the entrance to the station.