WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE FRANCE - news journal UDATE - (en) France, UCL AL #360 - Ecology - A69: Rout of the Bourgeoisie (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Local business owners and politicians met in early March to defend the

A69 project. Their arguments focused on local economic activity, but
even there, they were on the wrong track. Let's help them find their way
again! ---- In Castres, the employers' organization Via 81 brought
together 5,000 people, many of them business leaders, on March 8, 2025,
to call for the resumption of work on the A69. Local political elites
were also involved, with the Socialist Party president of the
department, Christophe Ramond, declaring that "EUR300 million has
already been spent. It is unimaginable, in a context of dwindling public
funds, that this motorway could be brought to a standstill."[1]Beyond
the controversial figure, Christophe forgets that it is the taxpayer who
will have to pay the disproportionate maintenance costs of the A69.

Indeed, the A69 is impossible to privatize since traffic would simply be
insufficient to generate a profit. The N126, whose route the A69
generally follows, carries an average of 9,000 vehicles per day.
However, the technical recommendation for converting a road to a dual
carriageway is a minimum of 15,000 vehicles per day, with the long-term
goal of 40,000 daily to "guarantee the high level of service expected by
the infrastructure."[2]

Wikimedia - Raimond Spekking
The president of Via 81 talks about the 1,000 jobs lost for the region.
We'll skip over the bad habit of bosses using job blackmail, but this
money isn't theirs. Instead of asking for short-term profits to be
subsidized to complete this useless highway, they could request state
funding so that laid-off employees can contribute their expertise to
important infrastructure needs (cycle paths, building energy efficiency
upgrades, modernization of the Castres-Toulouse train line, etc.).

They justify their attitude by their fear that Castres' economic
activities will be relocated. But let's warn them that, in reality, a
highway would only benefit logistics companies, whose costs depend on
travel times. Logistics is the sector that notoriously employs the
fewest people per area.[3]

The absence of a highway project will not cause the Tarn region to
decline. On the contrary, its presence would reinforce the dynamic that
concentrates the most skilled activities and jobs within metropolitan
areas like Toulouse and turns adjacent urban areas into dormitory towns.
Land grabbing for pointless projects is, moreover, the surest way to
empty the countryside, something Castres' notables clearly don't care about.

As convincing as this article may be, the Tarn elites will not give up
their pressure. Indeed, the state has appealed the Administrative
Court's decision to cancel the project. Faced with the bourgeois
reaction, let's continue the popular mobilization!

Corentin (UCL Kreiz-Breizh)

Validate

[1]"Near Castres, supporters of the A69 demonstrate to demand the
continuation of construction," Le Monde, March 2025.

[2]"Catalogue of road types for the development of the national road
network," Cerema, October 2018.

[3]"One job created at Amazon destroys 2.2 in local retail," Mediapart,
November 2019.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?A69-deroute-de-la-bourgeoisie
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