The departments refuse to pay the extra cost of the Grand Paris Express

The title of the communiqué, in capital letters, sounds like a declaration of war: "The RATP widens the deficit of the Société du Grand Paris. " Signed Thursday, November 29 by the seven presidents of departments of Ile-de-France – outside Paris – the text denounces the increase in costs of the extension to the south of the metro line 14.

A slippage of 500 million euros, half a billion, on a planned budget of nearly 2.2 billion euros for fourteen kilometers of line. Almost 25% increase … Financed by the Société du Grand Paris (SGP), responsible for achieving the 200 kilometers of the Grand Paris Express, line 14 south, which is scheduled to come into service in 2024, has been under the project management since 2015 of the RATP.

Anger at the state

The issue, discussed at the SGP's supervisory board on Wednesday, November 28, has aroused the anger of department presidents against the state. It shifted the opening of several lines to limit the drift of supermétro costs, whose bill went from 25 billion in 2013 to 35 billion euros in 2017. If the RATP is a target all the more tempting that it was in 2015 presided over by Elisabeth Borne, now transport minister, it is the state that is targeted by elected officials.

In question: the convocation of the presidents of departments by M^me Borne, Friday, November 30th. The government wants to draw on the transfer taxes collected by the departments to supplement the insufficient revenue of the SGP.

"These transfer taxes are used to finance our social policies, at a time when the payment of the RSA makes the departments bloodless", François Durovray (LR), the President of Essonne, gets carried away. "The state refused this summer that a department president take over the presidency of the SGP, banned us from exercising jurisdiction over transportation in 2015 and now wants us to pay the bill! "

Increase revenue

The rejection is all the more keen as Parliament is currently considering, in the finance bill, the tax measures advocated by MP Gilles Carrez (LR) to increase the revenue of the SGP.

But where Mr. Carrez wanted to increase these revenues by nearly 250 million euros a year, the measures voted are closer to 130 million: the government refused to increase a tax on households and limited the increase in tourist tax. "There are still margins, we can further increase the tax on car parks shopping centers, it would be an ecological tax", pleads Christian Favier (PC), president of Val-de-Marne.

RATP, for its part, denies everything "Skid" and points to rising labor and raw material costs, which has resulted in more expensive responses than expected in bidding. Remains that this controversy makes bad impression, a few days after the sending by the Prime Minister of a letter to the president of the executive board of the SGP, Thierry Dallard, reminding him to his obligations of "Reduce by about 10% the cost" of the project by presenting "Detailed optimization levers".