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Welcome to European Tribune. It's gone a bit quiet around here these days, but it's still going.
by r------
Wed Apr 4th, 2007 at 05:35:27 AM EST
Dodo wrote up today's historic news of the new TGV speed record. I wanted to say a bit more about this, because aside from taking pride in Europe and France demonstrating once again our capacity to be world beaters, there's a backstory to this that is equally compelling and which dovetails with what many of us hold as values dear to us.
Not only did we push the technological envelope here, but we did so in a way which validates our socialist values. How's this? Because each TGV success is by definition the success of a State/State-owned/Private partnership which has for decades continued to produce technological advances in the service of mankind, providing a welcome antidote to the neo-liberal screeds of how State intervention in the economy = hopelessly inefficient = Soviet bread lines.
Now, we all know this is specious, but that's not the point. The point is the dominant political-economic narrative found in the Wall Street Journal, the FT and even, via Eric Le Boucher, Le Monde, doesn't have space to describe this development accurately.
Le Monde has an excellent opinion piece on this today, translated below the fold, the sort of commentary which points to why Le Monde is not just the definitive paper of record in France, but in all of the West. I'll leave the parsing of the Anglo-american neo-lib treatment of this achievement to others.
From the diaries - afew. Edited by Jerome to replace fuzzy image by video snap above.
Le modèle du TGV
La grande vitesse ferroviaire devient vertigineuse. Une tentative de record mondial à près de 600 km/h, mardi 3 avril, sur la nouvelle ligne du TGV Est, une exploitation commerciale à 320 km/h dès le mois de juin sur cette ligne, et peut-être plus tard à 350 km/h... Le plus étonnant dans cette révolution est qu'elle dure depuis l'automne 1981, avec la mise en service du premier TGV Paris-Lyon, et qu'elle ne cesse d'ouvrir de nouvelles perspectives.
| | Rail at such high speeds as to make one's head spin. An attempt at a world record of just under 600 km/h, on Tuesday 3 April, on the new Paris-Strasbourg TGV line, commercially viable speeds of 320 km/h no later than this June on the same line, perhaps later rising to 350 km/h...The most astonishing thing about this revolution is that it has continued since autumn 1981, with the launch of the first TGV line from Paris to Lyon, and that it has never stopped opening new possibilities.
| Le TGV a bouleversé les notions de temps et de distance, introduit une nouvelle fluidité. Il a dessiné une géographie différente de la France, et s'apprête à le faire pour l'Europe. Alors que l'Europe institutionnelle patine, peut-être le véritable sentiment d'appartenance à une même entité viendra-t-il des habitudes et des possibilités créées par des programmes d'études dans plusieurs pays, comme Erasmus pour les jeunes, et par les lignes transeuropéennes de TGV pour tout le monde, quand Paris sera à 3 heures de Munich ou 5 h 35 de Barcelone, dès 2009.
| | The TGV has turned notions of time and distance on their head, and introduced new potentials. It drew up a different geography of France, and is readying itself to do the same for Europe. All the while Institutional Europe is on the skids, perhaps a true sense of belonging to a common entity will come from the common customs and possibilities arising from common educational programs across many countries, such as the Erasmus program, and by transeuropean TGV lines for everyone, when Paris will be 3 hours from Munich or 5:35 from Barcelona, beginning in 2009.
| L'avance conquise et maintenue jusqu'à aujourd'hui par la France dans la course à la modernité ferroviaire est à l'évidence une réussite du "modèle français" si décrié, fondé sur l'alliance de l'Etat et des entreprises publiques avec le privé, pour produire des technologies de pointe et équiper le territoire. Les nouvelles avancées du TGV ne doivent toutefois pas faire oublier ses limites, voire les risques qu'il induit.
| | The lead that France has built and to date maintained in the race for modern rail transport is an obvious success of the much maligned French model, founded on an alliance of the State, State-owned companies and private enterprise to produce cutting edge technologies and to roll them out to the national territory. At the same time, the new TGV advances should not make us forget their limitations and the risks to which they may lead.
| L'expérience des lignes précédentes a montré que le TGV n'est pas un instrument miracle du décollage économique. Il peut même vider encore un peu plus un territoire en déclin, car il a tendance à accentuer les dynamiques, plutôt qu'à les inverser. Il est porteur d'une dualité territoriale et sociale qui peut être préoccupante si elle n'est pas corrigée : d'un côté les territoires desservis, et les passagers qui peuvent payer plus cher ; de l'autre les zones hors réseau TGV, et les voyageurs qui n'ont pas les moyens de la grande vitesse.
| | Experience with previous lines has demonstrated that the TGV does not miraculously lead to a surge in economic growth. And it might even empty out to a greater extent some regions already in decline, as it tends to accentuate, rather than reverse, pre-existing business and demographic trends. It carries with it double-edged swords, both territorial and social in nature, which could be worrying if not corrected: on one side, areas served by the trains and passengers who can afford the higher fare; on the other, areas not served by the trains and those who cannot afford to ride them.
| Le maintien d'un maillage suffisant pour le réseau classique, l'interconnexion avec le réseau des TER, le développement d'un TGV adapté au transport ferroviaire régional font partie des réponses adaptées à ce défi. Il y faut des moyens financiers, de plus en plus rares, de l'imagination et la volonté de développer des synergies. Or l'une des difficultés potentielles est que la multiplication des opérateurs, chacun animé de sa logique propre - celle de Réseau ferré de France n'est pas celle de la SNCF, qui n'a pas les mêmes objectifs qu'Alstom, sans parler des collectivités locales associées au TGV -, ne débouche sur une dilution des responsabilités, voire des conflits d'intérêts. Les risques sont connus et identifiés. Il est de la responsabilité de chaque acteur du TGV de veiller à les réduire, pour ne pas gâcher la belle aventure.
| | The maintenance of a sufficient network of conventional trains, interconnectivity with the TER (regional conventional passenger train service), and development of a TGV more adapted to regional rail transport all are part of an overall response to these challenges. Financial means, increasingly scarce, as well as a bit of imagination and the will to develop synergies will be needed. One of the potential risks in the project is the multiplicity of partners in it, all driven by their own motives and logic - those of the Réseau ferré de France do not align with those of the SNCF, which in turn does not perfectly share the objectives of Alstom, not to mention those of local communities associated with the TGV - and that this might lead to a dilution of responsibilities, even conflicts of interest. The risks are known and identified. It is incumbent upon each partner in the TGV project to work to reduce these so as not to wreck such a promising endeavor.
|
And, to finish for Le Monde, the most efficient actor to manage these partnerships is of course the State. In Brussels, in Paris, and of course, as partnerships extend, further afield.
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