CRISIS. The PCF Puts Its Ideas on the Table
Defense Secret - A Breach of the Rule of Law
Farmers: a world on the edge of the abyss
"I could never have imagined what was waiting for us"
Alice Tavares ordeal as she is thrown out of her home
Emmanuel Macron Does Another Favour for the Rich
The Spinetta Report, a Catastophic Scenario for the Railways
Solidarity: 300,000 older people are “socially dead”
Diplomacy from Atlanticism to Gaullism, Macron Embodies all the Lines
Agribusiness. Intensive farming: Chicken Little was right
Future of France’s Front National: Interview with political scientist Jean-Yves Camus
Inequality still rife with one in five children living in poverty
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Former Presidential Candidate For the Front de gauche, Launches His Candidacy For 2017
Win the War? No, Put an End To It
The Radical Left In Quest Of a Central Position
No Terrorists, But Lunatics
FCP’s National Secretary To Dissident Socialists: “Now’s the Time To Rally All Energies In Support Of Anti-Austerity Policies”
Monsters Of Their Own Making
The Cazeneuve "Anti-terrorist" Bill : Freedom, not Terrorists In Peril
Hollande and the EU : Downright Capitulation, No Renegotiation
The Yellow Line
Development Aid For a Fat Return
A « Simplification Shock » In Favour Of Foreigners is Neccessary
Controversy Leaves Copé In the Buff...
Rail Disaster in Brétigny :The Obsolescence...
HSBC’s trust deficit just the start of its woes
THE RUNOFF FOR THE RICH. THE RICE GRAIN POLICY
Resources: In Vittel, Water no longer Flows from the Spring
Laurent Brun says: “the next phase is privatisation of the SNCF”
Alternatives to uberization of labour in the making
Free Trade. The Left unite against CETA
Denis Durand: "To change the behavior of banks, we must take control of them"
A Toxic Law, Poisonous to Health
Unemployment: 84 percent of French people do not believe in the drop
Taxation: Bercy softer on the definition of tax havens than Brussels
Agreement on fishing in Brussels
The 32 hour week, the best defence against unemployment
ORIGINAL FRENCH ARTICLE: Petite histoire de la libéralisation
by Clotilde Mathieu
French Rail: A Short History of Liberalization
Translated Friday 19 July 2013, by
Since the first EU directive in 1991, the rail sector has been constantly suffering from under-investment and job cuts.
Reduce costs, push up fares, freeze investments and build prestigious high-speed lines to gloss over the facts : that’s the short history of the twenty years of the rail network’s liberalization. In 1997, in compliance with the 1991 EU directive, France split the management of the rail infrastructure from the running of train services, and set up Réseaux Ferrés de France (RFF: the French Rail Network). This first stage paved the way for a new economic model for French Rail. Along two lines: decrease in investment according to short term profitability prospects, and preparation for the arrival of rival companies to the SNCF, which almost exclusively entailed job cuts in order to lower the costs.
In January 2007 rail freight services were opened up to competition, then three years later came the turn of international passenger services. As a result, road transport exploded and 10,000 jobs were lost in the freight services, according to CGT figures. “We have not succeeded in making it possible to develop freight services by rail,” SNCF president Guillaume Pepy conceded. But he did not heed the lesson. The opening of the French passenger rail services to competition, “the fourth rail pack”, is to be implemented next, probably in 2019. And the SNCF boss has a plan for reducing costs by approximately 150 million euros in 2013 and by 700 million by 2015 on four expense items: real estate, information systems, purchases, overhead expenses.
To which must be added a 32 billion euro debt for RFF, inflated by the decrease in State subsidies, with financial costs that diminish - by 1.2 billion euro each year - the resources earmarked for the maintenance and adequate development of the network.
One after another, reports end with the same conclusions: outdated rail tracks, trains forced to “go-slow” along 3,000km (nearly 1,900 miles) against 1.000 ten years ago. The network is breathing its last.
Whether the whistle for a reversal of the rail policy will be blown, the rail reform planned for the Autumn will show.
