Faced with the success of the sale of 200,000 Intercités tickets at 19 euros, the SNCF intends to go further. “We are continuing this operation until the end of the summer (…) while stocks last”, announced the Minister Delegate in charge of Transport Clément Beaune on France 2, Monday morning.
“This operation was to stop this weekend and as it went well and there are tickets left, we continue”, expressed the member of the government, inviting “all those who wish” to ” connect the minute we talk” to take advantage of this offer. “Everyone can connect to the SNCF site where, even today, there are more than 100,000 tickets at 19 euros available on the Intercités lines, in day and night trains, for the summer holidays”, he specified.
As a reminder, these places – which were initially to be sold until Saturday July 15 – concern journeys between July 7 and August 31 on all Intercités lines. Accessible to all travelers unconditionally, “this popular measure” in the words of Clément Beaune was to “contribute to relieving the wallets of holidaymakers”.
And if less than half of the tickets have been sold on July 17, the minister still qualifies the operation as a “great success”. If only, according to him, because it has made it possible to “restore certain Intercity lines which have sometimes been neglected”. Like the Paris-Toulouse, Paris-Clermont-Ferrand or Bordeaux-Marseille links, he notably listed.
These lines represent only a small part of passenger traffic. In 2022, the Intercités had transported nearly 12 million people, according to the estimates of the minister delegate. Half less compared to some 23 million French people who took the TGV last summer. However, the State cannot act directly on the prices of high-speed trains, which depend on SNCF Voyageurs. Nor on those of the TER, orchestrated by the regions. But only on those of Intercités, the last railway prerogative of the Ministry of Transport.
