They call for “sacred union”. Around forty mayors from the Lyon conurbation came together on Tuesday to defend the rail link project between Lyon and Turin, a “crucial, capital infrastructure”. The opportunity to urge the French government “to respect its commitments” and to denounce in passing “the absurd and ideological opposition of the metropolitan executive”, the ecologists having withdrawn in September from the Transalpine committee.
“How can you be against this project when you keep saying you want to develop the train? asks Senator Etienne Blanc. “Developing the train without developing the railways is a complicated equation,” he quips.
“We refuse to turn our backs on Italy”
Forty-two mayors of the fifty-nine municipalities of Greater Lyon have therefore launched this “solemn” appeal to move the lines and convince others to join their cause. “We refuse to turn our backs on Italy and we refuse that the Lyon-Turin project turns into Dijon-Turin, storm Gilles Gascon, the mayor of Saint-Priest. Its a question of life or death. Without this project, it is the death of our territories. »
Arguments, the elected officials concerned are not lacking. Their municipalities, although far from the valleys of the Arve or the Maurienne, are also asphyxiated daily by the passage of heavy goods vehicles, they recall. “There is a real ecological issue. This rail link would make it possible to massively decarbonize the mobility of travelers and goods”, pleads Murielle Laurent, mayor of Feyzin, with supporting figures. In 2022, 47 million tonnes of goods transited between France and Italy. A “record, she underlines. 7% traveled by rail, 93% by road. The objective is to get as many trucks out of the Lyon conurbation as possible, to tip at least a million of them onto the rails. »
Crossroads
“The train pollutes 25 times less than the car and 65 times less than the plane”, continues the elected official. At his side, Véronique Sarselli, mayor of Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon, abounds. “Certainly, the cost of this achievement is very high but it has an economic interest for our companies”, she in turn supports. Eight thousand jobs created “directly or indirectly over the next ten years”. The ratio is simple, she demonstrates: “According to studies, one euro invested will generate three euros in economic benefits for France and Italy. »
” We are at the crossroads. Without Lyon-Turin, we will not be able to switch freight to rail. There is an urgent need to act”, warns Stéphane Guggino, general delegate of the Transalpine, while the government must take a decision on the route of the 150 km of access roads to the tunnel under construction, in order to connect Lyon to Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne (Savoie) then Turin.