The railway unions organized a demonstration during the official launch of the very first opening to the competition of a TER operated by another company than the SNCF, on the line between Marseille and Nice.
In the aftermath of the launch of the terminals operated by Transdev between Marseille and Nice, the railway unions wanted to reiterate their disagreement on Monday with this opening to the competition which «morcelle» According to them the public service.
They were around 300, according to the CGT, Saint Charles station on Monday morning. Another rally was scheduled in the afternoon in Toulon, on the occasion of the official inauguration of the line.
“We have been denounced the opening to competition for months. We are in favor of an integrated company, not a fragmented company. The fact of fragmenting everything is not good for public service ”told AFP François Tejedor, secretary general of the CGT Cheminot Paca, majority union.
“An anxiety -provoking climate”
“It is not said in a dogmatic way, since the English are going back, after decades of opening to disastrous competition. The Germans find themselves in very great difficulties. The Belgians, unlike the recommendations of the European Commission, have decided to make a direct allocation to the historic operator ”he lists.
For him, the opening to competition will not change the structural problems of the network state: “We noted yesterday, they faced delays related to network problems”.
“The Marseille site is very jostled by these openings, with the arrival of Trenitalia on the line with Paris. We have a real anxiety -provoking climate and union organizations have deposited a social alarm “explains Julien Troccaz, federal secretary of Sud Rail Paca, who specifies that a strike notice has been filed.
In service since Sunday
“They left in a logic of rail SMEs, to play each at the small railway. Except that the rail system is not that, it is an integrated system that requires having collaborations or pooling ” adds the trade unionist.
Sunday, the first private ter, operated by the Franco-German group Transdev, began its connections between Marseille and Nice, on a line formerly operated by the SNCF, the culmination of a competition process initiated in 2018 by the PACA region.
Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur is the first region to have opted for the competition of regional rail traffic made possible by European law. Transdev, whose public service delegation contract, estimated at some 800 million euros, run over ten years, is committed to a regularity of 97.5%, against 80% before, according to the region.
