Advertisement

Potholes, bridges at risk of collapse: French roads in a desperate state, report says

The Local France
The Local France - [email protected]
Potholes, bridges at risk of collapse: French roads in a desperate state, report says

A recent report carried out by the French government on the country's road network and bridges has been making headlines once again in light of the bridge collapse in northern Italy which claimed 39 lives.

Advertisement

The French government needs to spend €1 billion a year for 20 years to fix its national road network which is in such a poor state that bridges are at risk of collapse, tunnels are in a sorry condition and potholes are everywhere, a recent report has concluded.

Of the 12,000 bridges in France looked after by the French state, one third are in need of repair, the report reveals.

The report, commissioned by the government's own ministry of transport also paints a worrying picture of the 12,000 km of state owned road networks in France.

It concluded that "17 percent of the network today is in a significant state of degradation" and that "seven percent of other kinds of infrastructure such as tunnels and bridges need renovation work".

Covering the report La Depeche newspaper noted: "These findings will not surprise anyone. Motorists have noted this progressive degradation for years."

And there have been worrying examples of the dangers spoken about in the report.

In May this year, the A15 motorway had to be closed in the direction of Paris when part of the Gennevilliers viaduct subsided (see tweet below). The motorway bridge remains closed for repair works that have caused knock-on traffic chaos around the area.

 

 

France's Transport Minister Elisabeth Borne said the partial subsidence of the bridge reflected the sorry state of the whole network which has suffered due to decades of neglect.

In 2015 the motorist organisation "40 Million d'automobilistes" launched a participative operation to denounce the state of the roads in France in which it asked drivers to flag up the roads they considered the most dangerous.

The organisation's chief Pierre Chasseray said that the quality of the maintenance of the roads is called into question in the case of 47 percent of road accidents in France.

The ministry of transport's report points the finger of blame for the poor state of roads in France at the chronic lack of investment over the years.

Transport Minister Elisabeth Borne herself denounced the poor state of a network that has been left for decades to deteriorate due to a lack of maintenance.

The government is planning on investing €800 million a year between 2018 and 2023 in the country's road network, but for those behind the report it's simply not enough.

Many of The Local's readers were surprised by the damning report, believing that the roads in France, despite the problems, are still in a much better state than elsewhere in the EU.

More

Join the conversation in our comments section below. Share your own views and experience and if you have a question or suggestion for our journalists then email us at [email protected].
Please keep comments civil, constructive and on topic – and make sure to read our terms of use before getting involved.

Please log in to leave a comment.

Anonymous 2018/07/23 21:43
You cannot compare the state of the roads in a relatively poor country like the Czech republic.<br />France is a rich country with some of the most appalling road conditions anywhere.<br />In our area of the Creuse some of the roads are in such a bad condition that they are positively dangerous and harmful to your wheels and suspension.<br />The problem is that the road maintenance appears to consist of just chucking a bit of tar and gravillon in to a pothole and leaving it at that and not resurfacing properly.<br />If a regime of proper maintenance was introduced it would save a considerable amount of time and money.

See Also