LGV Bordeaux-Toulouse: LGV: Pierre Chollet asks the President of Lot-et-Garonne to “sit around the table”
The departmental opposition councilor Pierre Chollet asks the president Sophie Borderie to convene the elected officials to exchanger on the LGV project so that “the Lot-et-Garonnais do not watch the trains go by”.
“Life is a series of negotiations and they do not take place in a Care Bears room”. Pierre Chollet is the first to break the unity displayed until then by the departmental council on the LGV Bordeaux-Toulouse file. While President Sophie Borderie has just reaffirmed once again the Department’s desire not to participate in the LGV financing plan adopted on Monday by the regional council, the opposition departmental advisor – he is not putting on his leadership cap here. 100% Lot-et-Garonne group – invites him to “sit around the table”.
“The important thing,” he says, “is to adopt a principle of reality which quickly becomes a principle of responsibility. We must not leave the Lot-et-Garonnais alone to face this project. I ask the president to reconvene a special official meeting on the GPSO project. Either we remain in opposition in principle, and the project will be carried out without us being sterile, or we integrate the table of funders and we weigh to obtain solid counterparts concerning our territory and its inhabitants. “
“The file advanced in a LGV way”
In session of the departmental council, Pierre Chollet, like all the other elected officials, voted against the financing. How does he explain this shift? “Because the file is moving forward in a LGV way”. It highlights the rapid development of the GPSO project over the past three months. “The political will did not exist at the start of the five-year term with President Macron who had mentioned daily trips. And then finally the Prime Minister Jean Castex returned to put 4 billion euros with the State, 2 with Europe. “He then heard that the last decision of the Council of State dated September 27, 2021, that rejecting the appeal against the DUP (Declaration of public utility) of the south of Bordeaux, closes the phase of administrative appeals” justified “. Finally, there is now a financing plan.
Offended by the way in which the regional council presented the invoice for the GPSO Bordeaux-Toulouse and Bordeaux-Dax, he underlines that the Toulousains, around Carole Delga, president of Occitanie, had very quickly a strong to complete their record financing in one step. “They took everyone with them. In Nouvelle-Aquitaine, we pedal a little more in sauerkraut. It’s normal, the Bordelais, well equipped, are 2 hours from Paris ”. He also notes that there is now a discount. “We are going from 122 M € to 52 M € for the Department and the Agglo from 40 to 18. It is enormous. We did well to offer ourselves because the discount is 56%. “.
“Wine growers have been more influential than forest growers”
Considering the evolution of the file and the discount, Pierre Chollet believes that “the empty chair policy would be a political error”. “We must not remain in an irresponsible rigidity, he adds. The question is no longer to participate in the financing but to participate in the investment company. We must stop taking refuge in the history of funding so as not to come to the debate of sustainability. If, around the table of the finance company, there is only the president of the agglomeration of Agen, the Lot et Garonnais will find themselves in a bad position. They will have no one to defend them ”. He thinks of negotiations on the goals of acoustic protection, on facade insulation, on landscaped plantations. “The corridors are determined but there are discussions within the corridors”.
Within the 100% Lot-et-Garonne group of which he is the boss, Pierre Chollet’s position is likely to move some. Julie Castillo and Aymeric Dupuy, departmental advisers of the canton of Forests of Gascony, are fiercely against the LGV. “They are fighting because the project impacts the forests of our department while it does not follow the course of the Gironde and the Garonne which would have been simpler. We had to protect Bordeaux wines. Wine growers have been more influential than forest growers. Here again, it is better to have a representative around the table ”.
Pierre Chollet finally warns: “It is not enough said: the Toulouse residents if they can not stop in Agen, they will. The people of Toulouse want to be in Bordeaux as quickly as possible to be in Paris two hours later. It’s all in the negotiations. Just like the railway bridge between the LGV station and the Agen city center station. If we do nothing, there will be one stop per day for every 30 trains. The trains will tear up the 47 with Lot-et-Garonnais watching it go by ”.
Bertrand chomeil