The government wants to stifle the beginnings of a new discontent. A result of the movement of the “yellow vests” that are made for barriers of highways, resulting in several tens of millions of euros of damage to Vinci, the government wondered how he was going to be able to move on with public opinion the toll increase of 1.8% on 1 February.
The solution could have been found on Thursday afternoon: the driver via regular highways on the same route will be able to subscribe to receive a 30% discount from the ten round trips per month, announced Thursday the ministry of Transportation at the conclusion of a meeting with the motorway companies. This is according to Elizabeth Terminal, the Transport minister, to 29 euro discount for a driver making the round-trip between Metz and Verdun, ten times in the month.
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The minister told reporters that the effort of the motorway companies would be “in the tens of millions of euros”. “This is an unprecedented effort, because it is supported entirely by the concession companies without any consideration, without any compensation to other users today or tomorrow, and without any compensation to the State”, she stressed. These new subscriptions will be paid for, but their price will be capped at € 2.50 per month. They will be available on the entire highway system paid from 1 February, the date on which the rates of tolls should be increased in accordance with contracts binding these companies to the State.
Generalize practices at the local level
A solution that seems more reasonable that a possible freezing of the tariff of tolls, that had privileged Ségolène Royal in 2015. Indeed, if the government had borrowed this way, the motorway companies have most certainly obtained the annulment of the measure by the administrative justice. In addition, if the companies have agreed to set up this commercial gesture, it is also because the context is different in 2015. At that time they had had the feeling of beings taken part only because the government had to cancel the implementation of the ecotax and sought to compensate for the shortfall of a billion euros related to the measurement aborted. “There was no reason that one pays the broken pots,” explained recently Xavier Huillard, CEO of Vinci. The government had also threatened to make a mockery of the contracts governing the relationship between the State and the motorway companies.
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today, nothing of the sort. Elizabeth Merely repeated that it did not question the contracts with these companies. The gesture that she has asked the dealers to the exits, even if it means a slight shortfall, and do not impact excessively. They are already in place in a timely manner of the subscriptions with preferential rates for regular users. It is simple to generalize to the national level of the practices that exist locally.
Away from the topic of the nationalization of the great national debate
The motorway companies do not comply, however, not to such an extent by pure goodness of heart. They intend thus to show that they have heard the cry of the “yellow vests” and they bring their contribution to the national effort for social justice. This gesture can help to make them less unpopular, and keep the theme of the ‘re-nationalisation” of highways which skyrockets even while the great national debate began.
