Some 400 protesters gathered Saturday in Gironde against the future high-speed rail line (LGV) Bordeaux-Toulouse and Bordeaux-Dax, whose first works are expected at the end of 2023.
At the call of the LGVEA association and the collectives "LGV Ni ici ni ailleurs" (LGV-NiNa) and "Stop-LGV Bordeaux Métropole", a "naturalist walk" was organized Saturday at midday to visualize the footprint of the future line in Saint-Médard-d'Eyrans, about fifteen kilometers south of Bordeaux.
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We will oppose it. The Ciron Valley, we will defend it and it will harden, "said Richard Lavin, member of the LGV-NiNa collective, in the presence of several parliamentarians and elected officials.
Toulouse-Bordeaux in 1h05
This Grand Projet du Sud-Ouest (GPSO), in the works since 1991 and relaunched in recent years, aims to connect, in 2032, Toulouse to Paris in 3h10 and Bordeaux in 1h05, saving an hour on the current route. Five years later, according to the presidency of the GPSO, a section through the east of the Landes forest should join Dax to Bordeaux in twenty minutes less than the existing route.
In April, the prefect of Occitanie Pierre-André Durand, also coordinator of the GPSO, confirmed on France Bleu that the commissioning of the Bordeaux-Toulouse high-speed line remained scheduled for 2032 and that the site would start "in principle at the end of the year".
The president of Nouvelle-Aquitaine Alain Rousset (PS) and his other supporters defend a "green" project that would "take out" of the road the 10,000 trucks going up every day from Spain, freeing up existing lines for freight.
Artificialization of an ancestral beech forest
But opponents denounce a "deadly project" that would lead according to them to the artificialization of 5000,<> hectares, crossing in particular the Ciron valley, a tributary of the Garonne, where there is an ancestral beech forest.
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We cannot break the Aquitaine basin when we see the (drought) crises we have," Pauline Dupouy, spokeswoman for LGV-NiNa, told AFP. "It's the right timing to react, it's not too late, the work has not started.
»Opponents also criticize the imposition of a special equipment tax (TSE) on 2000,14 municipalities near the route to finance a "pharaonic project" estimated at 40 billion euros. This envelope must be covered 40% by the State, 20% by local authorities and <>% by the European Union.
