The 302km line, and 39km of connections to the conventional network, were constructed by the Lisea consortium of Vinci (33.4%), Caisee des Dépôts/CDC Infrastructure (25.4%), Sojas (22%), and AXA Private Equity (19.2%) under a €7.8bn 50-year design-build-finance-operate-maintain concession, which was awarded in 2011.

When it opens on July 2, the line will cut Paris - Bordeaux journey times from 3h 14min to 2h 4min. The Paris - Toulouse trip will also be reduced by more than an hour from 5h 25min to 4h 9min.

Alstom is supplying a fleet of 40 TGV Océane double-deck trains for the route, 17 of which will be in service when the line opens. An order for a further 15 trains was approved by the board of SNCF Mobility on February 23 as part of a package to rescue Alstom’s Belfort plant from closure.