War is now declared.
And it is, once again, the RER B users who will be the victims.
As Alstom had suggested in Le Parisien, the company confirmed this Thursday evening that it was withdrawing the offer from Bombardier Transport to build the new RER B trains.
According to her, “the technical and financial conditions of the BT-CAF consortium's offer do not correspond to market prices and do not allow this contract to be executed without significant risks for the financier, the operator, the travelers and for our business ".
The company, which took over Bombardier Transport on January 29, explains that "several audits, internal and external, have been carried out" and that it "has already identified several disqualifying non-conformities which should have led RATP to reject the Bombardier-CAF offer ”.
It was these “problems” that prompted her to request mediation from the RATP earlier this week.
She also explains that she prefers "her offer", which would be at least 500 million euros more expensive.
RATP and SNCF Voyageurs do not want to let it go
Except that RATP and SNCF Voyageurs assure, for their part, that they carried out an audit last summer of Bombardier and CAF's offer.
Audit which did not find an abnormally low offer.
The battle should now continue before the judges.
The RATP-SNCF Voyageurs group reacted a few hours later.
And this Thursday evening, said he was "ready to initiate all legal actions against Alstom-Bombardier, given the commitment made by the Bombardier-CAF consortium during the submission of the firm offer" .
146 trains initially planned for 2025
The call for tenders was launched in 2018 by RATP and SNCF Voyageurs to build 146 new trains for the RER B, the current trains of which will be celebrating their 40th birthday.
Last January, two and a half years later, Bombardier Transport - still independent at the time - and CAF were selected against Alstom.
But the latter delayed the signing of the contract with suspensive appeals before the high courts and administrative courts, until its takeover of the railway activities of the Canadian group Bombardier.
This Friday, the administrative court must also examine one of them and rule on the viability of the offer contested by Alstom.
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The 146 trains were expected from 2025 on the RER B. User associations now despair of seeing them one day arrive.
And this Thursday evening, due to an electrical fault, the line was suddenly interrupted at 8:50 p.m. The resumption was only estimated for midnight.