The tortuous administrative path to which Renfe has been subjected by the French regulators is reaching its final stage. On July 13, high-speed trains of the Spanish public operator will begin to run alone in French territory, once they have been able to open a commercial branch and the train drivers have been trained. The routes that were lost when their French counterpart, the SNCF, decided to break the cooperation agreement they had to operate jointly between the two countries will thus be recovered.
First they will do it from Barcelona to Lyon, with a daily service in each direction from Friday to Monday, although the inauguration will be brought forward to Thursday 13 July. That day will be the first time that a Spanish machinist will provide commercial service in French territory, precisely coinciding with one of the most important festive bridges in the country, that of the national holiday of 14 July.
Two weeks later, on July 28, the route from Madrid to Marseille will be added, also with daily circulation at weekends, so that Barcelona and Mediterranean cities in the south of France will have two Renfe trains per day in each direction . From October they will start to circulate every day. Added to the two trains operated by SNCF through its InOui brand between Barcelona and Paris, cities such as Perpignan will now have a connection with the Catalan capital with four daily trains in each direction.
The start of the Renfe service on the other side of the Pyrenees has a cross-border relationship component between Spain and France, although for the company’s managers what is truly relevant is the entry as another player in the neighboring country. Just as SNCF competes on the Madrid-Barcelona corridor with low-cost Ouigo trains, Renfe wants to be seen as an option for French people making short trips for work or leisure and to become an option for trips made between Perpignan and Lyon and Marseille, and also at their intermediate stops: Narbonne, Besiers, Nimes (in both cases), Valence (on the route to Lyon) and Avignon and Ais de Provence (on the Marseille route).
This bet on French travelers is also demonstrated by the aggressive pricing policy with which tickets will go on sale from tomorrow, more typical of a low-cost company: nine euros for journeys that have an origin and destination in french country Those that are international, on the other hand, will start from 19 euros to the intermediate stops and 29 to the terminal stations.
Renfe does not hide that the target has been set far beyond Lyon and Marseille. “Seeing the athletes arrive at the Olympic Games in Paris on a Renfe train would be beautiful”, said the president of the company, Raül Blanco. The road to reach the French capital before the summer of 2024 will not be easy, even less than it has been to be able to recover services in the south of France, even if it is with the same train model that was used until December through cooperation with SNCF. From next month the two operators will compete in France as well as in Spain. Considering that the corridor between Lyon and Paris would be the equivalent of Barcelona-Madrid, where the most lucrative business is located, Renfe fears that the French authorities will do everything possible to delay the entry into competition despite the obligation in the framework of liberalization of the sector in Europe.
