While several thousand people demonstrated on Saturday against the A69 motorway project between Toulouse and Castres, Clément Beaune tried to respond to this opposition movement on Monday. Without explicitly mentioning the project intended to open up the basin of Castres and Mazamet, the Minister Delegate in charge of Transport estimated on Franceinfo that it was necessary “obviously to review a certain number of road projects”.
Recalling that he had “launched a review of all motorway projects in January”, of which “the A69 is examined in this context”, the minister promised that the government would communicate its “response to all road projects (…) by the beginning of the summer”. Seven current motorway projects are affected by this review, requested “in view of current issues: fight against the artificialization of soils, reduction of CO2 emissions, but also opening up of territories”, specified the Ministry of Transport on Friday.
On the motorway project between Toulouse (Haute-Garonne) and Castres (Tarn), Clément Beaune repeated that it was “specific”: “It is very advanced and it has already been the subject of debates and procedures legal”. But “things are not white or black,” said the minister, saying he was in favor of changes to “limit the environmental impacts” of the project.
In addition, the former adviser to Emmanuel Macron indicated that during the next infrastructure contract negotiations between the State and the regions, which will open in the coming days, “we will reduce the share of road projects , to give priority to public transport and rail transport”.
