The train is at the heart of the French public sector travel plan. Under government guidelines, rail takes precedence over other means of transport wherever possible, with air travel usually reserved for only the longest of trips, and car travel only for the shortest.

“Journeys three hours or less should be undertaken by train, travelling in second class,” according to Claudine LeDeouff, head of supplies and purchases at Service des Achats de l’Etat (SAE), the state buying service of the French government. In fact, for most government workers and public sector employees the guidelines simply underline what might have been a natural choice.

High-speed TGV links and a comprehensive rail network joining Paris to many major cities mean rail travel makes sense for French public sector travellers. The 780 km (488 miles) trip from Paris to Marseille, for example, takes just over three hours by TGV (it still qualifies for the train travel only rule). The 466 km (291 miles) between Paris and Lyon can be covered in two hours by TGV, and a new high-speed link being built between Bordeaux and the capital will cut journey times from three to two hours. As Yves Pechon, public sector director at American Express Business Travel, says: “Travelling with the TGV in France is both comfortable and easy. It’s quite a simple choice. And as most workers need to go to straight to the town centre, it’s far easier to take a train.”

“Less than a three-hour journey by train is considered do-able,” Le Doeuff says. “We only ever travel from Paris to Brussels and Strasbourg by rail, now.” Trips to London, too, usually involve the Eurostar rather than a flight, she says, but for travel to French cities that are less well-served by the rail network, such as Toulouse and Nice, air travel is the norm. “It would take too long to travel to these cities by train.”

There are no preferential train tariffs for public sector workers, with the exception of the military, but a “sophisticated” pricing system makes it straightforward to reserve tickets at reasonable prices, says Le Doeuff. The Thalys booking system on the SNCF website means fare prices can be halved if they are booked far enough in advance. And while second class travel is prescribed for public sector workers, there is some room for manoeuvre. “Sometimes first class tickets cost the same as second class tickets,” she says. “And where a journey is long and the traveller accepts rail over air travel, it would normally be acceptable to choose first class.”

When it comes to choosing how to travel, Le Doeuff says a number of elements are considered. “Typically we would look at a whole series of factors,” she says. “We would look at the duration of the trip, the time taken to travel from the person’s house to their destination, the carbon footprint and the price.”

Train travel guidelines vary for workers in different parts of the French public sector, with local town halls or Mairies given a certain amount of autonomy when it comes to travel planning. As the distances may be shorter, travelling in and around the municipality, the car is a more common means of transport. And as for the upper echelons of the French administration, a decree made by the Prime Minister Francois Fillon in February 2011 made it clear members of the government should also prioritise train travel, and keep travel in general to a minimum. One trip per week is permitted, and travel is to be by rail unless the journey time exceeds two hours.

Fillon, however, came under criticism when it was discovered, later the same month, that he had made use of a government jet to make the journey from Paris to his home in Sarthe, around 200 km (125 miles) southwest of the capital, between one and two hours away by train. The French government cited “security risks” as a reason for his taking neither a train nor a car to make the journey.

And the French President Nicolas Sarkozy does not adhere to the train rule either. The president of the SNCF, Guillaume Pepy, told French newspaper La Dépêche that the security requirements necessary to protect Sarkozy would be too onerous to undertake. A 60-year-old law states that the highest security levels must be used for a train carrying the president: “When he travels by plane, the security measures are very simple to put in place. When he takes the train, the rules state that each bridge would need to be guarded by gendarmes.”

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