After a month of uncertainty, it is Patrice Vergriete, former Minister of Housing and former mayor (various left) of Dunkirk (North) who takes over the Transport portfolio in the government of Gabriel Attal.
Born in 1968, the man who is described by the Ministry of Ecological Transition as an expert in town planning and regional development went to the Louis-Le-Grand high school (Paris, Ve), Polytechnique and the OECD (Organization for Cooperation and of economic development), where he cut his teeth.
He succeeds Clément Beaune (Renaissance), who publicly contested the immigration bill.
It was under the leadership of Patrice Vergriete that free public transport was implemented for all in the Dunkirk metropolitan area.
Since 2023, in addition to the ministry responsible for housing, he has succeeded Jean Castex – former Prime Minister and current boss of the RATP with whom he will have discussions – as president of the French Transport Infrastructure Financing Agency (Afitf).
Placed under the supervision of the minister responsible for transport, it is she who incurs state expenditure in this area.
Transport, the key to the success of the Olympics
At the head of the Ministry of Transport, his biggest challenge, for the coming months in Île-de-France, will obviously be that of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Transport will be one of the keys to their success, both for the rail networks and for the reception of tourists at airports, the management of oversized baggage or peaks in traffic.
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His predecessor, Clément Beaune (Renaissance), had set up “the mobility committee” of the JOP.
Since the fall of 2022, all mobility stakeholders, RATP to SNCF, including Valérie Pécresse (LR), president of Île-de-France Mobilités, Aéroports de Paris, communities and prefectures, have been gathered every six weeks around a table to discuss and find a solution to all the sticking points: “If the Olympics took place today, I am not sure that we would be at the level of international standards, had criticized Clément Beaune, in October 2022, during the establishment of the first committee.
The objective is therefore to identify points for improvement in a logic of the athletes' journey, from the airport to the Olympic sites, via the city center.
It is Patrice Vergriete who will also be responsible for some highly flammable decisions: the passage of the ring road at 50 km/h or the perpetuation of the Olympic lanes, this left lane on the ring road and the motorways, which during the Games cannot be used only by accredited vehicles, or even the fate of flying taxis.