opponents fight back in court
100 associations and 70 individuals on one side, 81 elected officials from New Aquitaine and Occitanie on the other, including the mayor of Bordeaux, announced on Thursday April 28 that they had filed appeals with the administrative court of Toulouse against the plan of funding from GPSO (Grand Sud Ouest rail project). They correspond to the “irregularities” in the adoption of this plan by the local authorities, and to the “irresponsibility” of these, which commit colossal sums – 5.6 billion euros – promises to be further inflated. The anti-LGVs meet for a meeting on Saturday in Bordeaux.
“See you in 2023 for the first pickaxes north of Toulouse and south of Bordeaux! », Etienne Guyot got carried away, the prefect of the Occitanie Region after the publication in the official journal of the decree provided for by the Société du Grand Projet du Sud-Ouest (GPSO), the local public establishment (EPL) which will be in charge of steering the construction of high-speed lines speed Bordeaux-Toulouse and Bordeaux-Dax. Except that his opponents are not giving up.
9 associations, representing for some of them, such as Sepanso (Society for the study, protection and development of nature in the South-West) or CADE (collective of associations for the defense of the environment of the Basque Country and southern Landes), around a hundred other organizations, plus 70 individuals from the four departments concerned by these LGVs, have just lodged an appeal with the Toulouse administrative court against the financing plan for the Bordeaux-Toulouse LGVs and Bordeaux-Dax.
“We are fulfilling a mission of public safety by seeking the cancellation of this plan”, attacks Denis Teisseire, of Trans’Cub, a Bordeaux consumer defense association. The latter indeed denounces the “irresponsible local authorities who have made an irreversible commitment to finance the GPSO without knowing what it will cost them in reality, and by agreeing to bear all the overruns”.
Inflated quotes
According to him, 14 billion euros in the cost of the project will appear at this stage “as an indication”, it is not 5.6 billion euros that the communities of Occitanie and New Aquitaine will have to pay, but Moreover, “just by integrating the financial and management costs alone” linked to the implementation of the EPL.
These costs “are not taken into account in these costs and necessary, if necessary, to be borne by the local authorities alone”, indeed stipulate the version of the document approved by the authorities.
“As an indication, aiming, for example, to spread the budgetary burden over 40 years, the financial costs could reach 10% of the investment costs”, advance the representatives of Trans’Cub who estimate them in total at 25 additional %, or 7 billion.
But the bill could be much higher still. Firstly, because the preliminary design studies have yet to be carried out, and past experience shows that estimates sometimes tend to double for such infrastructures, or even quadruple in the case of CDG Express in the Paris region.
“Insincerity”
Then because, with regard to the section to Dax, “the estimate of the cost of the line (nearly 2.5 billion euros) is the work of local authorities, not SNCF Réseau”, which refused to commit to an amount before carrying out the studies.
“This plan takes into account the hypothetical revenue from an office tax which has not yet been voted and a participation, to date very uncertain, of the European Union”, also denounce 81 local elected officials in a press release announced that they were also attacking the financing plan at the Toulouse administrative court. “If these revenues did not intervene, it would be the signatory communities – and therefore their taxpayers – who would have to compensate. »
For all these suspects, “the financing plan is severely distorted by approximations that border on insincerity”. On the other hand, “its development was accompanied by abusive procedures that prevented elected officials from deliberating calmly and in full knowledge of the facts”.
A la carte plans
The icing on the cake: “All the communities did not vote the same, which taints its legality”, estimate the 81 elected officials. All “seat in communities which had to decide on the financing plan of the GPSO, or which were integrated into it against their will”.
They are mainly ecologists, municipal, agglomeration, departmental and regional councilors from Bordeaux, Toulouse, Albi, Pau, Gironde, the Basque Country or New Aquitaine. Among them, the mayors of Bordeaux, Pierre Hurmic, and of Bègles, Clément Rossignol-Puech.
Several communities (including Grand Dax and the Departmental Council of Lot-et-Garonne) are mentioned in the first “consolidated plan” have disappeared from the final plan, adopted only by two communities. As Rue89 Bordeaux pointed out, the 22 others, including Bordeaux Métropole, “have not only adopted variants with considerable differences”, according to Denis Teisseire: the share of the New Aquitaine Region has increased between the two by 1 to 1.6 billion, that of the Bordeaux metropolis fell from 865 to 505 million euros, the Department of Gironde “is participating in it against its will for 243 million euros”…
So many “nullities of the plan” which according to Denis Teisseire should not fail to be rejected by justice, and to derail this “pure financial madness that is the GPSO”. The Toulouse administrative court could, according to the associations, examine the case within two years.
“Yellow vest factory”
Either perhaps after the start of the work if the schedule is respected, and if the next majority does not question this project.
“But there will be different procedures initiated, promises Philippe Barbedienne, president of Sepanso. we intend to carry out a legal guerrilla war, hoping that the Holy Spirit will enlighten our great elected officials. This project aims above all to give large construction sites to the construction sector. It will enrich a little certain inhabitants of the metropolises who will benefit from the real estate speculation linked to the LGVs. But people who live 200 or 300 meters from the line will see the value of their property reduced by two-thirds, without compensation, and will be forced to pay the special equipment tax intended to pay for the line, which harms their quality of life. . »
A “yellow vest factory”, underlines Denis Cassou, of the Coordination Vigilance LGV, quoting the former Girondin deputy Gilles Savary.
“After having participated in large numbers in the public inquiry, which had issued an opinion rejected [outrepassé par le gouvernement Valls, signataire de la déclaration d’utilité publique, NDLR], the inhabitants of rural areas feel trampled. »
Also, the resistance is organized in the courts, and on the ground. This Saturday, April 30 will take place a gathering and a meeting from 2 p.m. at the Municipal Athenaeum in Bordeaux, in the presence of representatives of organizations from all the departments concerned.
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