Opening of RATP buses to competition in Paris: the spread of the timetable until the end of 2026 approved by the Senate

The legislative process to validate the spread of the timetable for opening RATP’s Ile-de-France buses to competition is progressing. On the night of Monday October 23 to Tuesday October 24, the Senate adopted, by 243 votes to 100, a bill from senator (Centrist Union, UC) of Seine-Saint-Denis Vincent Capo-Canellas supported by the government; it establishes the legal framework for this competition, already launched by the organizing authority Ile-de-France Mobilités.

This includes securing the terms of transfer of RATP employees to their new employer while maintaining their social guarantees. Some 19,000 workers are affected, on 308 bus lines.

The text, now transmitted to the National Assembly, above all makes it possible to stagger the timetable for opening the RATP bus networks to competition in Paris and the inner suburbs – in the form of an allocation of lots to new operators – until the end of 2026, while a deadline was initially set at the end of 2024.

“A timetable which would have made a sort of big shift on January 1, 2025 was impossible, unrealistic and undesirable,” justified the Minister Delegate in charge of Transport, Clément Beaune.

Left-wing groups in the Senate are on their way

While this opening to competition raises fears of social movements, the president (Les Républicains) of the Ile-de-France region and Ile-de-France Mobilités, Valérie Pécresse, had already said she was in favor of this modification in month of July. The rapporteur, Senator (UC) of the North Franck Dhersin, recognized that the “prospect of the Olympic Games” would require the “full capacity” of the Ile-de-France service, while striving to “avoid chaos on January 1, 2025” if the initial schedule was maintained.

The three left-wing groups (socialist, environmentalist, communist) in the Senate, very skeptical or even frankly opposed in substance to the opening of RATP bus lines to competition, were up in arms against the executive in the Hemicycle .

“You want to step over the Olympic Games to avoid an industrial crash during this event,” accused the (socialist) senator of Morbihan Simon Uzenat, denouncing a text “ordered at the request of Ile-de-France Mobilités and its president” . “We are being asked to vote on a timetable for accelerating the privatization and scrapping of the RATP,” grumbled Pascal Savoldelli (communist group, Val-de-Marne).

The Minister of Transport insisted: “This process is not a privatization process. He is part of the public service. »

In its text, the Senate also modified the conditions for transferring employees according to the criterion of bus centers (depots) and not bus lines, to avoid moving agents away from their workplace.