Ait’s the end From a railway spur winding through the wooded valleys of central France, a single wagon stops in the small town of Ussel. The station has hardly changed since it was built in 1880. Travelers still step over the tracks to reach the platform opposite. Tufts of grass and tall grass grow between the lanes.
To reach Ussel by train from Paris, 480 km away, there is no high-speed option. The journey can take nearly seven hours, with a change at Brive-la-Gaillarde. At the same time, thanks to France’s superb network of high-speed trains (TGV), it is possible to travel all the way from the capital to Marseille over the Mediterranean and back.
Spain now has the longest high-speed rail network in Europe. But France, which opened its first TGV line 41 years ago, has the oldest. To the French, the TGV is an emblem of national pride and technological prowess, as well as a way to bridge the gap. An executive will not hesitate to travel for a business lunch from Paris to Lyon, 460 km away, since the journey takes only two hours. Each year, more than 100 million journeys are made by TGV.
Yet four decades of pumping money into the TGV taught France another lesson, and not just about the enormous cost of building and operating these lines (since 2018, the state has incurred a staggering debt of 35 billion euros, or 37 billion dollars, from the SNCF, the state-owned national railway). It’s that linking lucky, hyper-connected cities to the capital has left whole swaths of the country at the mercy of poorly maintained railroads, fostering a feeling of abandonment. The TGV network, says Aurélien Delpirou of the Paris School of Urban Planning, has contributed to creating a “two-speed France”: non-stop ultra-fast trains for those who can afford them; second-order and slower trains for the rest.
On some secondary lines, the service is worse today than in the past. Two no-TGV the north-south lines crossing the center of France have been particularly neglected: one between Paris and Clermont-Ferrand, in the Massif Central, the other between Paris and Toulouse, which passes through Brive and Limoges. The wagons circulating on the latter are veritable museum pieces, designed in the 1970s. Today, it takes half an hour longer to get from Limoges to Paris than it did back then. “We are poorly connected, and everyone finds it frustrating,” laments Marianne Debuire, at the town hall of Ussel.
Aware of this divide, the French government recently decided to change course. As part of President Emmanuel Macron’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions, he wants more people on the railways and less behind the wheel. But she knows that such a strategy cannot rely solely on fast trains. “The TGV is a source of pride and for many large cities a driver of economic development,” said Clément Beaune, Minister of Transport. “But we under-invested in some other lines. For me, it is now a priority. The government is investing 3 billion euros in the renovation of these two non-TGV lines and the purchase of new trains. It has revived slow night trains on long journeys.
Remote places like Ussel, on the “thousand cow plateau”, would certainly need a boost. Since 1982, the city has lost 20% of its population, mainly those of working age. Uncertainty hangs over the future of an aluminum smelter in the municipality. The Grand Hôtel d’Ussel, the most chic in the city, has two stars. In its gray stone center, amidst narrow medieval streets, is a chic chocolate shop and a bookstore. But the cheese factory closed, and “for rent” signs sadly hang from boarded-up windows. When asked if it’s always so quiet, the manager of a bar, decorated with a plastic stuffed Santa hanging from the ceiling, replies: “Always at the end of the month”.
In many respects, this town of 9,000 inhabitants located on a remote plateau is lucky to have its own station, served by five direct trains a day to Limoges, and four to Brive. The single car train that comes and goes is shiny, modern and comfortable. Yet Ussel also embraces the challenge of getting people to trade the car for the railroad. Most residents use the car. 85% of households in Ussel own at least one, and four-fifths of home-work journeys are made by vehicle. The pattern is common. Across the country, 74% of French people use their car to get to work. “If we really want an environmental transformation, we need to double the share of passenger rail travel by 2030,” Beaune says. “But you have to be realistic, the car is not going to disappear.”
The divide between France connected to high-speed trains and its remote regions to slow trains also has political repercussions. In 2018 the yellow vests (yellow vests) The uprising began as a protest by car addicts against an increase in the carbon tax on fuel. Small budgets who use their car daily have felt snubbed by a Parisian ruling class well served by public transport. In the last round of the 2022 presidential election, Mr Macron won a huge share of the vote in major cities linked by the TGV, such as Rennes (84%), Nantes (81%), Bordeaux (80%) or Lyon (80%). Nationally, he was re-elected with 59%. Marine Le Pen, the nationalist-populist leader he defeated, won 41% of the vote nationally, but 50% of the vote in rural France.
The new focus on improving slower trains does not mean that France is turning its back on the TGV. Regional cities continue to lobby for them; local elected officials consider securing a high-speed connection as a sign of recognition for their municipality. The SNCF plans to expand the TGV from Bordeaux to Toulouse by 2032, as well as between Montpellier and Perpignan, and Marseille and Nice. A cross-border link from Lyon to Turin, Italy, is under construction. To encourage travel TGVFrance banned in 2021 flights between cities less than two and a half hours apart by train.
France is also under no illusions about how much passenger traffic it can reasonably shift from roads to railways, especially given the recurring strikes. But Mr Macron knows better than many leaders how explosive the mood can be in areas where people feel neglected and ignored. Better slow trains to such places may well prove more useful than faster trains that bypass them altogether. ■