VIDEO – Following a hearing of the SNCF president, a senator understands that Guillaume Pepy wanted to give up the security gates. The company denies and reveals the Le Figaro the other devices it wants to develop.
Promise of SNCF after the attacks November, security gates at stations could they be abandoned, just over three months after the creation of the device? The rumor. To date, only one gate was installed in North station for Thalys passengers who travel in Belgium.
Internally, the device was considered ineffective and too costly. The SNCF president himself would have doubted. It all started with a statement of the leader of the railway which acknowledged at a Senate hearing Wednesday when he said the other three countries, which could have put her in such a device stations – Belgium Country- Netherlands, Germany – there would not be favorable. “The Belgian government positively hesitation, the Dutch government negatively hesitates and the German government is against,” said the president of the SNCF.
Co-author of a report on transport safety, Senator Republicans, Alain Fouché, present at the hearing, has thus concluded that Guillaume Pepy had in mind to abandon the gantry security. “The SNCF president denounced the uselessness of security gates,” said the elected Vienna who requested an investigation into the portals to expose the exorbitant cost of this device, ie € 2.5 million per year per platform. The right of parliamentary head was perfectly in that initially, the Environment Minister, Segolene Royal, had made a national issue but also wanted to convince its European neighbors to follow. And only by taking such statements, it adds a little oil on the fire on the effectiveness of the security gates. Contacted by Le Figaro , SNCF has denied wanting to give up this device. “There is no question of renouncing the security gates. We’ll even keep them for Thalys, “replied Christophe Piednoël, a spokesman for SNCF, before publishing the same message on the Twitter account of SNCF.
“only the portals are not the right solution”
But the railway company plans to add them in order to better manage the daily flow of travelers. “Only the gantries are not the right solution, recognizes Christophe Piednoël. We must integrate the fact that ten million people circulate in stations daily against 60 million a year in the air. “
For this purpose, a panel of safety, mandated by the SNCF, will return in the course of next week, the Environment Minister, Segolene Royal, a report. Besides keeping gantries for Thalys, they will advocate, according to our information, adding new features such as the detection of explosives “to make them more efficient gantry today.” Added to this are other devices. “The Savary law now allows our 3000 railway police officers patrolling in civilian clothes and armed, and conduct pat-downs and searches. If a passenger refuses, he will be banned from boarding the train, “said the spokesman of the SNCF. Moreover, the railway company has set up a phone number – 3117 – to enable its users to report any suspicious person. These also have the opportunity to do so by sending an SMS to 31 177. The SNCF has received nearly 2,600 calls last month. Finally, the company plans to create software – “pedestrian-cameras” to monitor each camera a suspicious individual. “Every train station can have up to 500 cameras,” says Christophe Piednoël.
The question is whether these proposals will be approved by the appropriate Minister of the SNCF, Ségolène Royal, which itself advocated generalization security gates to other stations. And on this, the railway company who recalls that annually invests more than EUR 400 million for the safety of its passengers, was less enthusiastic, probably considering the cost too high. “In their report, our experts will take stock of the gantry device designed for Thalys. It is after this assessment that deployment decisions will be studied. The arbitration will be made in the coming weeks, “concludes Christophe Piednoël.
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