An amendment passed in October 2017 provided for toll-free travel for the police, the fire service and the gendarmerie. However, more than six months after the vote, the decree has still not been issued.
Called for by several right-wing MPs and passed by the National Assembly last October, the move to make tolls free for “priority vehicles serving the public interest” belonging to the SAMU, the gendarmerie, the police and the fire service is facing delays. According to Eric Ciotti, the Les Républicains MP for Alpes-Maritimes who tabled the amendment, the government is reportedly preparing to “abandon” this measure.
In a letter addressed to the Prime Minister on Thursday 21 June, which *Le Parisien* has seen, Eric Ciotti claims that this measure would be called into question “under pressure from the motorway lobbies”.
Amendment 284, tabled as part of the 2018 Finance Bill, had, however, been adopted unanimously last October. It called for “all motorway concession operators to be required to allow emergency vehicles (police, gendarmerie, fire brigade and SAMU) to travel free of charge on all motorways throughout France”.
Until then, firefighters did not have to pay tolls when responding to incidents on the motorway network, but had to pay the toll if they were travelling to join another unit in a different department.
Just a ‘delay’, according to the government
However, according to Eric Ciotti, this amendment has still not been the subject of a decree, even though the measure should have come into force immediately as it is included in the Finance Act. “I expect you to affirm respect for the executive’s authority (...) by implementing this measure, which resulted from a clear and overwhelming vote by the National Assembly,” writes the MP.
On Thursday, Françoise Dumont, first vice-president of the Var Departmental Council (LR) and president of the Var Departmental Fire and Rescue Service (SDIS) 83, had echoed the same information. “I have just been informed that a ministerial meeting has apparently decided the fate of this measure, which is, after all, a matter of common sense: allowing our firefighters to travel free of charge on our motorways when responding to emergencies,” she told Var Matin.
When contacted, the Ministry of Transport, for its part, gave assurances that this was merely a “delay” caused by negotiations with the motorway operators and that the measure “is in no way being called into question”.