Skip to main content

Eiffage set to be concessionaire for France’s RCEA project

France’s Transport Ministry has chosen construction and concessions group Eiffage as the single prospective concessionaire for the project to complete the Route Centre-Europe Atlantique. The east-west RCEA is considered to be one of the most dangerous routes in France, according to government statistics. Some sections of the route, also called the Route Nationale 79, has been upgraded into a four-lane motorway over the past several decades. The plan is make the remaining two-lane sections into four-lanes
June 17, 2019 Read time: 2 mins
France’s Transport Ministry has chosen construction and concessions group 5871 Eiffage as the single prospective concessionaire for the project to complete the Route Centre-Europe Atlantique.


The east-west RCEA is considered to be one of the most dangerous routes in France, according to government statistics. Some sections of the route, also called the Route Nationale 79, has been upgraded into a four-lane motorway over the past several decades. The plan is make the remaining two-lane sections into four-lanes.

French media reported that negotiations will now begin to finalise the project that could cost as much as €600 million, according to an estimate made last year by Benoît de Ruffray, chief executive of Eiffage.

The concession – which will not be bolstered with any public money – must include the provision for  clean vehicles and the deployment of electric vehicle charging equipment.

The project must be finalised by France’s transport regulator ARAFER and then given the go-ahead by the State Council, likely by the end of the year.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Environmentalists lose A69 autoroute appeal
    December 12, 2023
    Construction started this year by concessionaire ATOSCA near Toulouse in France but has been halted at times due to protesters invading work sites.
  • All change: get ready to rethink everything
    November 10, 2022
    How can we make our infrastructure ready for new sustainability challenges? What kind of investments are needed? And who will finance them? Tolling association Asecap has some thoughts. Geoff Hadwick reports from Lisbon
  • PPRS: the positive side of structural failures
    March 27, 2018
    You learn from your failures, not your successes. That was the overall message for delegates during the day-two morning session on the impact of engineering structural failures. These lessons are also too often “painful”, said Anne-Marie Leclerq, deputy minister for infrastructure within the ministry of transport for the Canadian province of Quebec. On September 30, 2006, a span of the six-lane Concorde Bridge in Laval, near Montreal, collapsed crushing to death five people and injuring six. Only recently
  • Increased infrastructure spending
    February 22, 2012
    With economies booming in the BRIC countries and other regions, spending on infrastructure is at a high - Patrick Smith reports As economic crisis grips much of the world, many countries are still spending billions on infrastructure to improve transportation. While the USA and Europe struggle with debt problems (and this has affected much of the rest of the world) the development of highways, airport, ports and other infrastructure is gathering pace in other regions to boost economic developments.