A-Infos (en) France, Lamouette Enragee: Some thoughts on free public transport in the Boulogne-sur-Mer area (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

When, in the interest of solidarity and environmental protection, the 
elected officials of the Elan Citoyen group call for free, time-limited 
access to public transport in the Boulogne-sur-Mer area, one immediately 
thinks: this is a proposal moderate and consensual enough for the 
left-wing majority that presides over the urban community to seize upon 
it and ultimately brandish it like a banner, restoring it to its 
original principles... Well, no! The Socialist Frédéric Cuvillier, 
president of the CAB and also mayor of Boulogne-sur-Mer, decided otherwise.

He preferred to reject the members of the group outright, claiming that 
the measure would inevitably lead to a tax increase. He retorted that, 
in his view, appropriate rates are already in place and more than 
sufficient...

A carefully measured demand, however.

Elan Citoyen had taken the precaution of calculating the cost of its 
proposal, which it estimates at less than 0.5% of the CAB's budget; this 
currently stands at EUR110 million. Furthermore, it states its intention 
to make the program permanent, should it prove successful in the long run.

The group is supporting its request with an online petition that has 
already garnered several hundred signatures and highlights the lessons 
learned from similar programs implemented on the coast, in Calais and 
Dunkirk (1). Finally, by contributing one euro per tourist, it intends 
to use the 2,700,000 annual visitors to the metropolitan area to finance 
the cost of the measure.

Choices dictated by interests, but whose?

If, as Frédéric Cuvillier suggests, the existing free public transport 
programs benefit a significant portion of users, one might assume that 
the shortfall represented by the current low revenue would be offset by 
the elimination of commercial, advertising, and enforcement 
infrastructure, which would consequently become superfluous, right?

In that case, invoking tax increases to reject free public transport is 
less a matter of reasoned argument than a convenient excuse. Especially 
since, in terms of budgetary choices, for the city of Boulogne-sur-Mer 
alone, the cost of the proliferation of surveillance cameras throughout 
the city-more than a hundred today-and the establishment of a municipal 
police force in all but name, speaks volumes about who the left is 
actually listening to and fearing, and who it is ignoring and disdaining...

In matters of politics, at any level, local or national, self-interest 
often dictates choices above all other considerations. Thus, a 
right-wing mayor, a defender of "French Algeria and the honor of the 
army," was one of the first in the 1970s to implement free public 
transportation in the city where he held office (2). Similarly, Natacha 
Bouchard, the current LR mayor of Calais, claims to have made the 
decision to make public transportation free in response to the Yellow 
Vest movement.

Blind Spots

Despite its limitations, Elan Citoyen's demands are worth supporting. 
They aim to be an immediate response to a steadily deteriorating social 
context, where partial struggles often interact to shape the composition 
and contours of a broader conflict that, in any case, never arises from 
nowhere.

The problem is that, for the moment, there is no real struggle. Hence 
the institutional and petition-based form that Elan Citoyen's actions 
take. As far as we are concerned, we make a very clear distinction 
between demands made by a group of users, which might employ a range of 
actions from collectively refusing to pay for public transport to 
occupying the transport company's premises or challenging elected 
officials during deliberation sessions, for example, and demands made by 
one or more political groups within the established institutions of the 
bourgeoisie.

Another important point concerns us: the funding that would be provided 
by a tax on tourism. Calling upon the tourism industry to balance the 
books, almost as a form of redemption, as if it were absolving itself of 
its sins by paying up, ignores the very foundations of this industry and 
its harmful effects on the territories and populations it is gradually 
subjugating. The "right to the city," a long-standing issue, cannot be 
addressed by isolating problems from one another, but rather by tackling 
the commodification of social life in its entirety. We'll discuss this 
further...

Boulogne-sur-Mer, June 13, 2026
(1) As its name suggests, the Elan Citoyen collective brings together 
citizens, but also activists from LFI, EELV, etc. The online petition: 
https://www.change.org/p/pour-la-gratuité-des-bus-dans-le-boulonnais-5d0e3358-407d-421c-9bca-24ba8687fb49

(2) Initiated in 1975 by Jean Legendre, mayor of the city of Compiègne.

https://lamouetteenragee.noblogs.org/post/2026/06/14/quelques-considerations-sur-la-gratuite-des-transports-dans-lagglomeration-boulonnaise/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Subscribe/Unsubscribe https://ainfos.ca/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en