Normandy MPs Call for Upholding High-Speed Rail Project Promises
Paris, February 22 – A new roadmap for the Paris-Normandy high-speed rail line (LNPN) project has sparked significant concern in the Manche department, leading to a unified appeal from local parliamentarians to the French government. The departmental council, in a plenary session on Friday, February 13, 2026, unanimously passed a motion condemning the “insufficient consideration of Western Normandy.”
This rare display of unanimity underscores a shared apprehension that transcends political divides. Following the council’s decision, all seven parliamentarians from the Manche department sent a joint letter to Philippe Tabarot, the Minister of Transport. They also co-signed a letter to Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, alongside all Lower Normandy parliamentarians. Their collective message urges the state to confirm its past commitments and reject any trajectory that would permanently marginalize the Manche territory.
Risk of Reinforcing a Feeling of Abandonment
“Beyond political sensitivities,” the parliamentarians wrote, the LNPN represents a “major issue of territorial equity, disencumberment, and economic development.” The modernization of the Paris-Caen-Cherbourg axis is deemed essential to ensure reliable services, strengthen railway capacities, and support strategic industrial projects within the department.
The prospect of a “refounded” project in autumn 2026, stripped of its Western Normandy dimension, would be a “major strategic error,” according to the elected officials. Such a move, they argue, would “reinforce a feeling of abandonment already very present in territories furthest from major decision-making centers” and send a negative signal to local elected officials, economic actors, and residents.
“We cannot accept that Manche be permanently relegated to the background of national priorities,” stated the Manche parliamentarians in their letter. They are seeking a meeting with both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Transport.
A Long-Standing Project with Significant Costs
Announced in 2009 by then-President Nicolas Sarkozy, the LNPN project is theoretically expected to be completed by 2040. Its estimated cost is 11 billion euros. Originally, the project aimed to provide Western Île-de-France and Normandy with more efficient railway infrastructure, offering faster, more frequent, and more reliable connections to Paris, while encouraging a massive shift from car to rail travel.
During his hearing in the Senate as part of the 2025 finance bill, former minister Clément Beaune once again acknowledged the state’s “railway debt” to Normandy as a whole. “A debt for which Manche remains one of the primary creditors today,” concluded the Manche parliamentarians.
Source: actu.fr
