Could the Bordeaux-Toulouse LGV be derailed due to lack of funding?

Who will pay the bill for the Bordeaux-Toulouse and Bordeaux-Dax high-speed line (LGV)? The financing of this 14 billion euro railway project, completed in 2022, was to be covered 40% by local authorities, 40% by the State and 20% by the European Union. But Europe’s money is conditional on the European connection of the line, via a final section of 91 km – not studied nor included in the total budget – which would connect Dax to Spain. Feasibility studies concerning this section have recently resumed, assures the project leader.

“Budgetary hell”

“But for the moment, this is not a cross-border project, this is the flaw in this project” alerts Senator EELV Monique de Marco. “However, if the EU share is not at the announced level, which financier compensates? Our local communities, already financially asphyxiated. Budgetary hell,” she recalled in a column co-signed by nine parliamentarians from the South-West, published on January 30. The wind is also rising against the “LGV tax, imposed on all residents who live near the route, to finance the project. »

“In the event of disengagement of one of the parties, the local authorities will be united, it is suicide to continue to advance funds” warns an activist from the Stop LGV Bordeaux Métropole association. “The State no longer has money, our railway infrastructure is collapsing, we must renovate the existing lines” insists the activist Girondine with, in support, the report of the Ambition France Transport conference published in July, which prioritizes spending towards “the regeneration and modernization of the structuring network”. Estimated by SNCF Réseau “at an additional 1.5 billion euros per year from 2028 compared to the 3.1 billion euros invested annually in 2024” without which 10,000 km of network lines would be threatened with closures or slowdowns.

Taxes to make up the budget?

“Of course we need to regenerate the existing network. We could recover this 1.5 billion euros from motorway dividends, track the taxes levied on mobility to finance the rail network and create an office tax for companies that set up around stations but pay nothing like in Bordeaux,” says Renaud Lagrave, vice-president of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region in charge of mobility and fervent defender of the Bordeaux-Toulouse and Bordeaux-Dax LGV, convinced that France would have the means to finance both modernization and the construction of a new line, the total cost of which has since been reassessed.

The New South-West Line (LNSO) would cost 15.9 billion euros, without counting the 2 billion already committed for the railway developments south of Bordeaux and north of Toulouse, nor the 2.4 billion promised by the EU. Or 20.3 billion euros, if the portage remains public, according to a research firm commissioned by LNSO.

But the bill, higher than that announced in 2022, could be even higher in the event of public-private financing, mentioned by the State, budgetary rigor requires. “The total cost would explode with shareholder remuneration,” warns Renaud Lagrave. Added to banking interests, the LNSO would cost 27.567 billion euros, not far from double the amount announced in 2022. The disengagement of the State, via the hypothesis of the public-private partnership, could be reinforced by the publication of the next report of the Infrastructure Orientation Council to “re-prioritize” major projects: will the Bordeaux-Toulouse LGV still be part of it?