France today abandoned ambitious plans which would almost have doubled its network of high speed railway lines over the next two decades. A cross-party report, accepted by the government, it delayed for at least 17 years ten new railway projects, including a fast passenger and freight line though Alpine tunnels from Lyon to Turin. The unfunded €250bn transport scheme promised by the former President Nicolas Sarkozy, including nine other high speed railway lines and a deep-water canal from Paris to the North Sea, can simply not be built in the present economic climate, the government has...
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