Minister for Transport Clément Beaune indicated on Wednesday that he would announce “next week” which highway projects the government intends to abandon, and which projects it will continue. “From next week I will announce unprecedented measures to abandon motorway projects,” declared Clément Beaune to Le Parisien, in an interview essentially devoted to his uncomfortable position within the government after the vote on the immigration law, some of which he contests. aspects.
Clément Beaune announced this sorting of motorway projects in April 2023, as protests mounted against the construction of the A69 which will link Toulouse to Castres. “It is clear that we are going to reduce the share of road projects – there will not be zero, there will be fewer – to give clear priority to public transport and rail transport,” he then said, promising “a project-by-project analysis” and a list “by early summer.”
In September, Clément Beaune again promised “strong decisions in the coming weeks”. For ongoing projects “we are going to reduce their impact on the environment” and for “projects which have not yet been launched, we are going to maintain some of them, since there are some that are useful, and we are going to stop some some,” he said. The minister recently gave the green light to the A69, and also to the A31bis which must double the existing A31 around Thionville, in Moselle.
Among the projects studied, we can cite the Arles bypass in Bouches-du-Rhône (A54), that of Rouen (A133 and A134), the completion of the Rouen-Orléans axis with bypasses of Chartres and Dreux (A154), the short A412 in Chablais in Haute-Savoie or the widening of the A63 south of Bordeaux, towards Spain. In view of the European elections, Clément Beaune -, also suggests “a common European loan in order to finance the ecological transition for the middle and lower classes”, like the EU’s post-Covid recovery plan.
