In the regions, the collective of yellow vests are organizing to come to Paris this Saturday. And, irony of history, since the beginning of the mobilization, many of them have borrowed the “cars ” Macron” to rally the movement in the capital. In 2015, the then minister of Economy, Emmanuel Macron had liberalised the transport sector by allowing the private bus to go journeys of more than 100km. Today, thanks to this, hundreds of cars flock to Paris to amplify the thunders against the policy pursued by the executive. After Flixbus, a company specializing in the transportation of long-distance coach bookings for trips to Paris have increased significantly during recent events. “If this does not mean that these reservations have a direct link with the events, we find a progression both on regular lines FlixBus that on the platform of rental cars with driver, FlixBus Rental,” says the company in a press release.
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For the 1st of December, the gap between arrivals and departures from Paris is of the order of 20%. “For comparison: this difference was 10% on Saturday, 17 November, and in normal times it is 2 to 4 percent,” says Flixbus. In addition, for the past two weeks, the company registers for its rental service, “an increase of 400% of the requests for information on the platform, mainly for trips/province Paris and the dates of 24th November and 1st December”. And peak searches are saved during calls to protest. For its part, Ouibus – a subsidiary of the SNCF group acquired recently by Blablacar – found “a small increase” in bookings, but not significant enough to connect it to the yellow vests.
On Facebook, many participants in the movement on Saturday is organize to be able to arrive on time in Paris. These mutualize their journey in launching calls for complete buses. “I make you this little message to know if there are any motivated people to come by car to Paris on Friday evening starting 22h, expected return Sunday morning around 6 o’clock. We have a bus full for the moment and to do from the second he must be full also. The amount of the return trip is 50 euros,” writes a yellow jacket on the social network. buses buses are preferred by the “yellow vests” because they are financially more affordable than train tickets purchased at the last minute.
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beyond the event Saturday, the liberalization of passenger transport by coach is permitted to be carried 7.1 million passengers by 2017, compared to 770,000 in 2015. Among them, the “1.2 million would not have travelled if it had not been for the cars, ensure the parliamentarians in a report. Another positive point: the territorial coverage has expanded, with 279 municipalities served. “61% of the population of metropolitan France has” from now on “a point of stopping in less than 10 km to home,” they add. The report recognizes, however, that none of the three operators (Ouibus, FlixBus and Isilines) has not yet reached its threshold of profitability. The recent announcement of the redemption of Ouibus by Blablacar, shows that this sector “is still changing”.
