Protests as France Plans Huge Cuts in Train Lines

[buzzsaw_23]

Protests as France plans huge cuts in train lines

Jason Burke in Paris
Sunday September 25, 2005
The Observer


It is one of the most stunning train journeys in France, from the historic Normandy city of Caen, through Le Mans and on towards the Loire wine-growing region and the town of Tours. Yet radical changes aimed at reducing the massive cost of the French railways to the state may close the line, and many others, for ever.

The result has been 'a mass grab for the alarm chain', as newspapers in France describe it, and a spate of protests.

Yesterday riot police were at Paris's Montparnasse station as hundreds marched against what the demonstrators say are swingeing cuts. Their claims strike an emotional chord in a country which sees its generally very efficient, clean and cheap public transport as a part of national heritage.

'It's a crisis. That's the only word for it,' said Jean-Claude DeLarue, president of the national association of public transport passengers. 'The situation is catastrophic.'

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1577762,00.html

[getmeouttahere]

1. Seems like the absolute worst time....

to be cutting rail service, anywhere, even one of the world's best. It's not like gas prices are going down, and in Europe they already pay at lot more at the pump than we do. I hope the people affected fight this tooth and nail.

[tocqueville]

2. in reality the Government isn't completely wrong

a lot of the protests are triggered by local political interests with their own agenda.

As soon as you want to change anything to the public transportation system in France, you hear an outcry of "attempts to dismantle the public service"...

fact is that there are extremely priviliged groups working on railways, organised in very powerful communist unions

fact is that several lines have trains rolling practically empty

fact is that all this is financed by taxpayers

fact is that some of the trains could be replaced by busses, thus granting a BETTER public service...

so the way the Guardian is presenting the story is pretty biased. Besides this was news 2 weeks ago, and nothing is DECIDED yet...

[KittyWampus]

4. perhaps France could lease those train lines going to tourist attractions

Some corporations might be interested in leasing those rail lines and then promote them in France and abroad.

Here in the US, people travel to see their country's attractions. Surely
the French might be just as interested if it was advertised.

And there must be plenty of people abroad who would love to take those train lines if packages were made up and promoted well.

[Greeby]

3. Fuck that

We had our Beeching, France should fight theirs

[Joe Chi Minh]

5. Absolutely. The kind of people behind it, like our

own dear Brit neocons in government, know the price of everything, and the value of nothing. Their idea of "rationalisation" is extremely partisan and egoistic.

[Greeby]

6. Thtas why I'm against renationalisation of the railways

What assurances can these campaigners give me that lines won't be closed, services won't be cut back, good facilities that have stood there since the steam age, demolished and replaced with bus shelters? Those things happened under a nationalised system under both Labour and Tory governments.

How bout this for a bright idea, letting railwaymen make the decisions about the running of the railways instead of politicians? :think:

[Joe Chi Minh]

7. Can't agree with your argument, at all.

It wouldn't have been pro-nationalisation people - still less the railwayment and their union leaders - who were responsible for the cuts, long-term underfunding and general rundown of the railways.

Even so, a great deal more was spent on it when it was nationalised, despite the ever-present pressure of the essentially corporatist, self-serving right-wing, for the government of the day - whatever its complexion - to spend less tax on the country's material and social infrastructure. I mean "self-serving" in the narrowest Mammon-worshpping sense.

[Greeby]

8. Thats my point

If we had railwaymen making the calls on these sort of things, it would doubtless have turned out better.

Nationalisation works on what I think is a naive premise: That Government operates in the public interest, and will be held accountable either by Parliament or the voters. None of these things are true anymore

[Joe Chi Minh]

9. But I don't think

that because democratic accountability has been vanishing from our national government, that is any kind of reason for jettisoning nationalisation where it is appropriate. Quite the contrary. Accountability must be restored.

To abandon endeavours in favour of the common good, simply on the grounds that the politicians can't be trusted to prosecute them with integrity and efficiency is a totally unacceptable counsel of despair.

If progressive social policies had depended on the integrity of the left-wing politicans who presided over the establishment and maintenance of the welfare state in the UK, it would never have been created in a month of Sundays. Hypocrisy, the tribute that vice is said to pay to virtue, is better than plain old atavism. The feeding of the beast.