The president of Renfe, Raul Blancohas admitted that he would have liked to go faster, that the process was not so slow, but this Monday he preferred stay with the goodwith the long-awaited news that the Spanish rail operator will finally be able to enter with its trains high speed in France, the country as neighboring as jealous of its things. The premiere will take place on July 13 with the line Barcelona-Lyon. will follow him Madrid-Marseille route, which will go live on July 28. Tickets can be purchased starting this Wednesday, June 21, with prices between 9 and 29 euros. On the horizon, Blanco has given himself “the dream that the Spanish Olympic athletes arrive in Paris in July 2024 on an AVE train”. In other words, next station, the capital of the French republic.
“It will be the first time that a driver operates on French territoryand that’s a sentimental element very relevant”, admitted Blanco, who has repeated up to four times that Renfe crosses the border with the idea of becoming “an operator of reference at European level with its AVE brand”. It will have taken two years for the public company to set foot in France after the European liberalize rail transport in 2021. At the bottom of the matter, the unfriendly relationship between operators, since the French public SNCF began to operate the Paris-Barcelona alone in mid-December 2022 after breaking relations with Renfe.
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It was precisely that month, the 22nd, the day of the Christmas lottery, when Renfe got the French safety certificate. Then the formations began, the circulation in tests and the installation, in April, of a permanent headquarters of the company in Lyon. This entire process will have a first peak on June 21, when tickets for the new routes that cross foreign territory are scheduled to go on sale. Next step, July 13, opening of the Barcelona-Marseille line, which will follow the Madrid-Marseille route, which will pass through Barcelona, which will begin to circulate on July 28. Thus, in August 16 weekly circulations are expected managed by Renfe between Spain and France.
Things will grow after the summer. Both lines will work from Friday to Monday, but from September (in the case of Barcelona-Lyon) and October (Madrid-Marseille), the idea is that they will be operational from Monday to Sunday.