Olympic Games 2024, Valérie Pécresse refuses any postponement of the opening to competition on bus lines

Right in his boots. Valérie Pécresse took advantage of the New Year ceremony of Île-de-France Mobilités, the organizing authority for transport in the Ile-de-France region, to proclaim loud and clear her attachment to the timetable for opening up to competition. The date chosen for the end of the RATP’s monopoly on the bus network of Paris and its inner suburbs is January 1, 2025. And the LR president of the region intends to stick to it.

A door opened by the government

Valérie Pécresse thus closes the door that the Minister for Transport Clément Beaune had opened ajar in La Croix on Thursday January 5. “Opening up to competition is a tool. If it is relevant within the current schedule, then it should be used on the scheduled date. If it is relevant at a later date, it must be activated later,” he said. A way of saying that the government is ready to change the legislation if “the responsible community”, the region, so wishes.

The former candidate for the presidency of the Republic was not convinced, far from it, by the approach of 250 left-wing elected representatives from the Ile-de-France region, including the PS mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, who recently sent a letter to Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne to demand a postponement of the opening to competition. In particular, the risk of blocking the Olympics by RATP unions firmly opposed to this planned development less than six months after the Games.

Do not “give in to blackmail”

“It’s true, there is a risk of a social movement that would disrupt the Olympic Games because the RATP has a monopoly, recognizes Valérie Pécresse. But given their public service ethic, I cannot imagine for a moment that the agents of this large public company are not at the rendezvous of a planetary event where the image of France is at stake.

And the regional president drove home the point, at the risk of being reproached for her inflexibility if the Games were to suffer from paralysis of transport: “Postponing the opening to competition because a minority of personnel could take the users as hostages would be giving in to blackmail. And then, if we postpone the opening to competition for six months or a year, we will be faced with the same threat of a subsequent social conflict, she argues. There will always be a context, there will always be an excuse for doing nothing. After the Olympics in 2024, it will be the municipal elections of 2026 then the presidential elections of 2027.

“One in five buses does not leave the depot”

For Valérie Pécresse, the principle of public service delegation open to competition is the only way to find a grip on the quality of transport. An emergency, in his eyes. Because since the start of the pandemic, waiting times have lengthened significantly, the reliability of the service has deteriorated, particularly in Paris and the inner suburbs, the only part of Île-de-France where bus lines are not yet subject to competition. “In the outer suburbs, we are now around 99% service done. On the RATP networks, on the other hand, one in five buses does not leave the depot when it should,” she says annoyed.

“The shortage of drivers, the traffic difficulties in Paris do not explain everything, considers Valérie Pécresse. In reality, we are witnessing a latent social conflict anti-opening up to competition, with strike notices that are too short, 59-minute strikes that disrupt traffic planning without giving rise to salary deductions. A social climate which also risks becoming tense in the months to come, with the announced disappearance, for new entrants, of the RATP’s special pension scheme.

Jean Castex ordered to present “an improvement plan”

At the same time, from petitions to public rallies encouraged by left-wing elected officials, discontent is brewing among users. Especially since on January 1, the monthly price of the Navigo pass jumped to €84.10 (+ 12%).

“As compensation”, Valérie Pécresse promises to return to travelers the record penalties imposed last year on the RATP for the malfunctions observed on the network. She also convened for Friday, January 13 an exceptional board of directors of Île-de-France Mobilités. Objective: to interview the leaders of transport operators who benefit from a delegation of service in the region. Like his counterparts from the SNCF, Keolis and Transdev, the former Prime Minister Jean Castex, now boss of the RATP, is summoned to “propose an improvement plan line by line”.

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