Connecting Castres to Toulouse will take 45 minutes instead of 1h20 by road from 2025. The future A69 motorway has seen a boost with the visit of Jean Castex to Castres this Saturday morning. The Prime Minister announced the start of work in 2023. He especially announced the name of the construction group in charge of works and operation of the A69. Vinci autoroutes, which operates all the motorways in the south of France, was not selected. The NGE group won the contract.

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The Prime Minister announced the name of the Castres-Toulouse motorway concessionaire and expects it to be commissioned for 2025

The NGE public works group was founded in 2002. The story of “New Generations of Entrepreneurs” begins in 1946 with the founding of the Guintoli company. Today the group employs 14,000 people. In 2020 alone, 4,000 new employees were recruited. NGE is targeting 20,000 employees by 2025. The group is established in seventeen countries. Its president is called Antoine Metzger. The group is based in Saint-Etienne-du-Grès in the Bouches-du-Rhône.

• A little thumb of public works

NGE achieved a turnover of 2.4 billion euros. A colossal figure, however, far from Vinci (43.2 billion), Bouygues (26.2 billion) or Eiffage (16.3 billion). 70% of the company’s capital is held by its employees. The remaining capital is held by Crédit mutuel

• Several major projects to his credit

NGE specializes in engineering structures such as the Mayenne viaduct, the digging of tunnels such as the tunnels of the future Grand Paris express or the construction of railways in Egypt or Uruguay. In the Tarn, the group has already carried out the Soual diversions in 2000 and Puylaurens in 2008. Currently, the group is involved in the dismantling of the submerged bridge at Mirepoix-sur-Tarn for civil engineering and earthworks. In the Landes, NGE is carrying out part of the work to widen the A63 into 2 * 3 lanes. NGE carries out around 10,000 projects per year.

• A very broadband subsidiary

Among the businesses of NGE, there is a large part dedicated to very high speed. NGE infranet, created in 2017, is responsible for the deployment of optical fiber, the design of telecom networks and the construction of overhead and underground infrastructures. Its customers are telecom operators and local authorities.

• Dealer: a new profession

Like Vinci, which builds and operates highways, NGE has created an NGE concessions subsidiary responsible for delegating public services, concessions and partnership contracts.

With the A69, NGE will be a manufacturer and a concessionaire for the first time. However, the group already has concession experience. The A88 in Normandy has been granted to a group of independent companies led by NGE since 2010. Also in Normandy, NGE has been part of the group of dealers for the A150, the Rouen / Le Havre axis, since 2015.

NGE said, in a press release, that it “relies on regional businesses and will create nearly a thousand local jobs” without opening a temporary materials quarry. NGE will create a dedicated company, ATOSCA, which will be in charge of the A69 concession. The concession contract is due to be signed in the first half of 2022, work will begin in 2023 and the entry into service of the motorway is announced for 2025.