Environmental activists have condemned the felling of trees along the future route of the Toulouse-Bordeaux LGV train line, as work began on the long-anticipated-but-controversial project.
The new €14 billion high-speed LGV service (ligne à grande vitesse) is set to link Paris to Toulouse in 3 hours 10 minutes (one hour less than now), and is scheduled to come into service in 2032. It will also stop at Dax, and Bordeaux, putting Bordeaux at just one hour, five minutes away from Toulouse.
The train line will eventually run to Spain once the Paris-Toulouse section has been completed.
It is also set to save 340,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions every year, say proponents. But opponents reject this, claiming that the project is “deadly”, and will lead to the artificialisation of around 5,000 hectares, including an ancestral beech forest.
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Tree felling
On Monday (November 11), around 150 trees “over 10 cm in diameter” were felled in the commune of Saint-Jory (Haute-Garonne) along the path of the future route, said Jean Olivier, president of Amis de la Terre Midi-Pyrénées, to AFP. Les Amis de la Terre is an association specialised in human and environmental protection.
The trees were cut after the Toulouse administrative court on Friday (November 8) rejected environmentalists’ application “for interim measures requesting the suspension of a tree-felling operation”, said train line operator SNCF Réseau to TF1.
The tree cutting is part of “preparatory work required for the installation of devices to reinforce the banks of the Canal Latéral to the Garonne, with a view to the creation of new railway lines”, it added.
The local prefecture has confirmed that operations were "in progress” on the site, including the felling of trees along the Canal Latéral to the Garonne river.
However, activists and opponents of the line have been occupying trees in the area since the summer, earning them the nickname ‘squirrels’. More than 3,000 people took part in the protests, authorities said, condemning the actions of “several hundred very violent individuals”.
Read also: Bordeaux-Toulouse rail project: Prefecture bans weekend protests
Activist still living in a tree
One activist was still living in a large oak tree on the banks of the river on November 11, and told AFP that he planned to “stay until November 15”, when a ban on more felling comes into force.
The Les Amis de la Terre Midi-Pyrénées group claims - along with several other environmental associations - that the trees are home to a number of protected species, including large capricorn beetles and bats.
“If this tree hadn't been occupied, it would have been cut down too," said Mr Olivier.
Similarly, opponents say that a survey of 2,800 local respondents returned a 92% negative view of the project.
The LGV Non Merci group, which brings together several associations opposed to the project including Les Amis de la Terre, has called it “an economic aberration”.
“This Bordeaux-Toulouse high-speed rail link is overwhelmingly rejected by the people and elected representatives of the suburban and rural communities,” the group told France 3.
“Today, the challenge is to spread the mobilisation so as not to let this insane and ruinous LGV go through, destroying the region and its natural resources,” said Mr Olivier. Other groups are calling on the government for a moratorium and a local referendum on the LGV.
Instead, activists are calling for more development of existing train lines and “everyday trains”.
Political favour
In contrast, many local politicians are in favour of the plans.
President of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region (PS), Alain Rousset, has called it an “investment for at least a century”, that would take “the 10,000 lorries that come up from Spain every day off the road”.
Carole Delga, President of the Occitanie region, told BFMTV: “In a few years' time, Toulouse and the Occitanie region will finally be connected to high-speed rail. To Paris on the one hand, but also to Southern Europe.
“This infrastructure will also enable us to increase the frequency of everyday trains on the Toulouse-Montauban route, like an RER,” she said.
Similarly, mayor of Toulouse and president of Toulouse Métropole, Jean-Luc Moudenc, has said that the new line will rectify the fact that the city is currently “the only regional capital without a high-speed service”, he told BFMTV.
And in contrast to the local poll mentioned by Les Amis de la Terre, a national Odoxa poll found that nearly eight in 10 French people and more than nine in 10 Spaniards approve of the project, which is also set to create 10,000 direct and indirect jobs, proponents say.
