When, in the interest of solidarity and environmental protection, the elected officials of the Elan Citoyen group call for free, time-limited access to public transport in the Boulogne-sur-Mer area, one immediately thinks: this is a proposal moderate and consensual enough for the left-wing majority that presides over the urban community to seize upon it and ultimately brandish it like a banner, restoring it to its original principles... Well, no! The Socialist Frédéric Cuvillier, president of the CAB and also mayor of Boulogne-sur-Mer, decided otherwise.
He preferred to reject the members of the group outright, claiming that the measure would inevitably lead to a tax increase. He retorted that, in his view, appropriate rates are already in place and more than sufficient...
A carefully measured demand, however.
Elan Citoyen had taken the precaution of calculating the cost of its proposal, which it estimates at less than 0.5% of the CAB's budget; this currently stands at EUR110 million. Furthermore, it states its intention to make the program permanent, should it prove successful in the long run.
The group is supporting its request with an online petition that has already garnered several hundred signatures and highlights the lessons learned from similar programs implemented on the coast, in Calais and Dunkirk (1). Finally, by contributing one euro per tourist, it intends to use the 2,700,000 annual visitors to the metropolitan area to finance the cost of the measure.
Choices dictated by interests, but whose?
If, as Frédéric Cuvillier suggests, the existing free public transport programs benefit a significant portion of users, one might assume that the shortfall represented by the current low revenue would be offset by the elimination of commercial, advertising, and enforcement infrastructure, which would consequently become superfluous, right?
In that case, invoking tax increases to reject free public transport is less a matter of reasoned argument than a convenient excuse. Especially since, in terms of budgetary choices, for the city of Boulogne-sur-Mer alone, the cost of the proliferation of surveillance cameras throughout the city-more than a hundred today-and the establishment of a municipal police force in all but name, speaks volumes about who the left is actually listening to and fearing, and who it is ignoring and disdaining...
In matters of politics, at any level, local or national, self-interest often dictates choices above all other considerations. Thus, a right-wing mayor, a defender of "French Algeria and the honor of the army," was one of the first in the 1970s to implement free public transportation in the city where he held office (2). Similarly, Natacha Bouchard, the current LR mayor of Calais, claims to have made the decision to make public transportation free in response to the Yellow Vest movement.
Blind Spots
Despite its limitations, Elan Citoyen's demands are worth supporting. They aim to be an immediate response to a steadily deteriorating social context, where partial struggles often interact to shape the composition and contours of a broader conflict that, in any case, never arises from nowhere.
The problem is that, for the moment, there is no real struggle. Hence the institutional and petition-based form that Elan Citoyen's actions take. As far as we are concerned, we make a very clear distinction between demands made by a group of users, which might employ a range of actions from collectively refusing to pay for public transport to occupying the transport company's premises or challenging elected officials during deliberation sessions, for example, and demands made by one or more political groups within the established institutions of the bourgeoisie.
Another important point concerns us: the funding that would be provided by a tax on tourism. Calling upon the tourism industry to balance the books, almost as a form of redemption, as if it were absolving itself of its sins by paying up, ignores the very foundations of this industry and its harmful effects on the territories and populations it is gradually subjugating. The "right to the city," a long-standing issue, cannot be addressed by isolating problems from one another, but rather by tackling the commodification of social life in its entirety. We'll discuss this further...
Boulogne-sur-Mer, June 13, 2026
(1) As its name suggests, the Elan Citoyen collective brings together citizens, but also activists from LFI, EELV, etc. The online petition: https://www.change.org/p/pour-la-gratuité-des-bus-dans-le-boulonnais-5d0e3358-407d-421c-9bca-24ba8687fb49
(2) Initiated in 1975 by Jean Legendre, mayor of the city of Compiègne.
https://lamouetteenragee.noblogs.org/post/2026/06/14/quelques-considerations-sur-la-gratuite-des-transports-dans-lagglomeration-boulonnaise/
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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