Régionalisation des transports collectifs : la fabrication d'une réforme « consensuelle »

Public transit is now a major power exercised by regions in France. The regionalization of public transportation, which started in the early 1980s, is analyzed in relation to a new pattern of major players, namely: the central government, local authorities and the French national railway system (SNCF). This pattern has emerged as a compromise, has gradually been worked out between two rationales: the one advocating a revival of local rail services; and the other, the preservation of funding by the state and the SNCF. Arising out of a work of mediation and out of strategies for enlisting reformers (mainly among politicians and from the SNCF) into a coalition, this compromise has bought about an ambiguous consensus among elected officials from left- and right-wing parties, executives from the SNCF, elected regional officials and representatives of railway workers who do not all share a priori either the same interests or the same conception of the general interest.