French Secretary of State for Industry Christophe Sirugue and Alstom Chairman and CEO Henri Poupart-Lafarge, met in Paris to present the progress of the commitments made by the French Government and Alstom for the maintenance of rail and industrial activities at the Belfort site.
The national monitoring committee, involving the State, the management and the trade unions of the Alstom group, and the elected representatives of the territory of Belfort and the Burgundy-Franche-Comté region, was assembled for the first time. The committee will be set up under the authority of the Prefect of the Territory of Belfort and will provide a forum for dialogue, information and monitoring of the honoring of the commitments made, in conjunction with follow-up at a national level.
“The commitments made by Alstom on 4 October have made good progress,” said Poupart-Lafarge. “Investments have begun both for new service infrastructure and development programs for the rail vehicles of the future. We note with interest the clarifications made regarding the order schedule, also announced on 4 October, which should ensure the continuity of industrial production on the sites of Belfort, La Rochelle and Reichshoffen.”
The State is committed to supporting the program to develop a new range of locomotive for an amount of 4 million euros, by the Investing in the Future Program. The program represents 30 million euros which directly benefits the Belfort site. The Future program is continuing to make progress as part of a partnership with SNCF, France's national state-owned railway company.
The State has initiated the process of definitive validation of the order for 30 regional TET trains (Trains d’équilibre du Territoire), which will be registered with the Board of Directors of SNCF Mobilités in December alongside SNCF’s order for 6 TGV trainsets for the Paris-Milan line. The order for 15 TGV trainsets for the Bordeaux-Marseille line will be submitted to the SNCF Board of Directors in January 2017. The order for 20 emergency locomotives will be confirmed by March 2017.
“Through the concrete implementation of the announcements made on 4 October, the Government shows that it is fulfilling its commitments to the sustainability of the Belfort site and to defend the knowhow and expertise of the French railway industry,” remarked Sirugue. “Two projects must be jointly carried out: in the short term, the development of service activities and orders that secure the workload, and in the long term, investment in railway equipment of the future. These two issues will be the focus of the Strategic Railway Committee, which I will call together on 5 December.”
Since October, Alstom has invested one million euros in a new industrial building for the maintenance of TGV trainsets, with the financial support of local authorities and the State. This site will employ 20 people as of 2017.