The recent remarks of the President of the Republic, favorable to the metropolitan RER in the ten largest French cities, including Toulouse, have put the Toulouse RER project back in the spotlight. So much so that the metropolitan opposition group AMC (Alternative for a Citizen Metropolis) is surprised by Jean-Luc Moudenc’s “monomaniacal” posture in favor of the metro. While the metropolitan council will hold its assembly this Thursday, December 8, the elected AMC stigmatized, this Tuesday, December 6, during a press conference in Toulouse, its stubbornness in favor of a project of 3^e metro line “which poses a very serious threat to the finances of Tisséo and Toulouse Métropole” and makes it “impossible to develop anything other than the 3^e lines”.

“We want to make two metro lines in one”

Marc Péré, the mayor of the Union, does not declare himself opposed to a 3^e metro line, even if he considers, rapporteur the words of Claude Raynal, socialist senator from Haute-Garonne and president of the Senate finance committee, that “we are making two metro lines in one”. The elected representative of the AMC group is surprised that the 17 km and 1.4 billion line project presented by Jean-Luc Moudenc in the municipal campaign in 2014 has now become a 27 km and 3 billion project. euros. The metropolitan opposition elected official contests the financing of the project after having dissected the financial sustainability study n°4 (ESB 4) presented, “succinctly”, only to the mayors of the metropolis and to a few representatives of metropolitan groups: “A first scandal is that this ESB 4 was not presented or discussed in the metropolitan council”, assures the elected official who evokes a “magic trick carried out” by removing 200 million euros of investment in the surface network, ” this means that the buses will be sacrificed and that the planned Linéos will not be created, all investments in the surface network will be canceled from 2026”, he assures.

“Magic trick” on the accounts

Marc Péré also mentions a reduction of 300 million euros in the remuneration of Tisséo Voyageurs and of 70 million euros in the envelope devoted to the maintenance of Tisséo, “all to compensate for the 500 million increase in financial charges between both studies (ESB3 in 2021 and ESB4 in 2022). The mayor of the Union is also worried about a subcontracting of the lines going from 23% today to 31% in 2030, this at a cost largely underestimated, according to him.
Statements denied by the great treasurer of the metropolis and of Tisséo, Sacha Briand (read below), who explains for example that the road works of the Tisséo network, hitherto financed by Tisséo Voyageurs, have now passed, by regulation, under the responsibility of the community, which explains the transfer of €300 million.
Finally, Marc Péré asserts that the debt contracted to finance some 3 billion in loans will explode from 2039 and will not be sustainable, due to the share of 1.3 billion borrowed in the form of bonds in fine, of which the repayment will be made over time (15, 20 or 30 years), “weighing on future generations”. An argument denied by Sacha Briand, who indicates that the sums to be reimbursed will be provisioned annually. Finally, the mayor of the Union evokes an error of 377 million € (a straw!) which would have slipped into the accounts of the projected cash flow (this too denied by Sacha Briand) and calls for “an independent financial audit before start the construction of the 3^e lines

“.