The Grand-Est launches an online petition to save its TGV services

You may have been surprised this Sunday morning by opening your dailies. The Greater East Region appears in full page and offers an advertisement, or rather a platform against the railway reform and its consequences for regional services. "The TGV is not the toy of the SNCF" can be read as a slogan. A little further down, the sponsors recall that the Greater East Region and the communities invested a total of 850 million euros to be served by the TGV, before worrying about the consequences of a fatal project of the SNCF which plans to suppress the links between Lorraine and the South of France and to reduce several services departing from Strasbourg. " The position of Nancy would be threatened, some TGV stations of South Lorraine service would close (Toul, Neufchâteau and Culmont-Chalindrey), the European opening of the Grand Est and its capital Strasbourg would be seriously undermined. " And to conclude " the President Jean Rottner and the elected officials of the Great East call all the forces to fight alongside them, to roll back the SNCF "

To lead the slingshot, a campaign called "Touch not my TGV" has parallel to be launched on social networks and a petition on the site Change.org. In a few hours, #PatPasAMonTgv has collected nearly 500 signatures. The Alsatian opposition leader Pernelle Richardot said she was among the first signatories, denouncing a "stripping railway" of the Great East.

For the elected socialist group, the project of overhaul of the TGV led by the SNCF "obstructs a development of the territory of the Great East and undermines a strategy of economic development, including Nord-Pas-de-Calais. South, with an opening on the Mediterranean basin which is absolutely fundamental for Strasbourg, European capital, but also for the Grand-Est in its economic development … One can not hold, with regard to railway, the lines only in one aspect financial and accounting, there is a territorial planning aspect and economic development extremely important. "

Deletion of the line Nancy-Lyon

The probable suppression of the Nancy-Lyon TGV line is particularly at the heart of the challenge of elected officials. As part of the railway reform undertaken by the State, the link, which provides two daily trips, could disappear by 2019. According to the SNCF, its stop could be explained by major restructuring of the station Part- God in Lyon until 2023 that should no longer make possible the reception at the TGV station. To compensate, the plan would consist of pbading travelers through Marne-la-Vallée or then to go back to Metz and then loop through Alsace. Inconceivable for the elected die-and-Mosellans Olivier Jacquin (PS Senator), Mathieu Klein (PS chairman of the Department) and Dominique Potier (PS MP) who were moved in a press release on June 29th. "We refuse that Lorraine become a cul de sac rail" they wrote.

Fewer connections from Strasbourg
In the boxes of the SNCF, another project makes cringe. The decrease of Alsatian services. SNCF would plan to cancel a round trip Strasbourg-Lyon and a round trip Strasbourg-Marseille per week. The decision has even already been validated and confirmed to elected officials by Vincent Téton, the regional director of the SNCF, "We can not hold, in terms of rail, the lines only under a financial and accounting, there is a territorial planning aspect and extremely important economic development " hammers out Pernelle Richardot

For its part, the SNCF, joined by telephone, specifies that it would answer the elected officials tomorrow, Monday 9 July.