At the SNCF, it’s not at all the same music about high speed. While his predecessor, Guillaume Pepy, assured that there would be no more new TGV lines, Jean-Pierre Farandou, on the contrary, is the flagship of the railway company. The current president in fact recently met Alain Rousset and Alain Anziani, respectively presidents of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region and Bordeaux-Métropole. A meeting at the end of which all three reaffirmed their support for the Grand Projet Sud-Ouest (GPSO), this extension of high speed from Bordeaux to Toulouse and Dax. According to them, this project “will offer considerable time savings for users, new rail capacity for TERs through the implementation of a real metropolitan RER – a project jointly carried out by Bordeaux Métropole and the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region. “

They also underline “the need to carry out the railway installations to the south of Bordeaux and to the north of Toulouse, as well as the new high-speed lines Bordeaux-Toulouse and Bordeaux-Dax, in order to free up the paths essential to the development of the metropolitan RERs of Bordeaux and Toulouse, and to develop rail freight between Spain and the rest of Europe. “Without this project, they add, the great south-west of France would ultimately be marginalized and excluded from the major flows of movement of people and goods. Likewise, the Metropolitan RER in Bordeaux could not see the light of day, and Bordeaux Métropole could not develop its transport system in line with its economic and demographic dynamism. “

Finally, the three presidents insist on the climatic aspect of this railway project by recalling that the GPSO makes it possible to avoid, in a first phase, 4.3 million trips by car, and 7.7 million once the project is completely finished, as well as over a million air trips.