Tunnel project divides Italy

SAINT-MARTIN-LA-PORTE, France -- A strategic European Union project to build a high-speed rail tunnel through the Alps, meant to speed journeys between France and Italy, could dead-end as Italy's populists squabble. On the French side, a 460-foot long rock-eating machine tunnels through the mountainside toward Italy at an average rate of nearly 66 feet a day. But on the Italian side, all is quiet: the construction site, long targeted by sabotaging protesters, is guarded by four law enforcement agencies, and work is limited to maintenance.

The survival of Italy's increasingly shaky populist government could well depend on whether Italy restarts construction on the Turin-Lyon High Speed Train link, which it halted last summer. One party in the ruling government coalition is fiercely against the project, while the other is for it.

Italy's internal standoff -- pitting the 5-Star Movement, which has taken a stand against big infrastructure, against its pro-business League coalition partner -- means France could wind up with a tunnel to nowhere. The uncertainties are also increasing tensions with the European Union, which is paying for 40 percent of the $9.72 billion project.

The 35.7-mile long Turin-Lyon High-Speed Train tunnel link, known in Italy as TAV, is a key part of an EU project linking southern Spain with eastern Europe. It's envisioned as one of six tunnels crossing the Alps, including the Gottard Tunnel in Switzerland, which opened in 2016, and the Brenner Tunnel between Italy and Austria, scheduled to open in the next decade.

The Turin-Lyon link replaces a tunnel built in 1871, which officials say is outdated in terms of technology and safety. High-speed trains must slow down to about 37 mph an hour -- making the journey from Milan to Paris seven hours. With the TAV high-speed train tunnel, the journey will be cut down to 4 1/2 hours.

The Italian government's commissioner for the Turin-Lyon line said the arguments within the coalition over the tunnel have gotten "surreal."

"The 5-Star ministers have all refused to come see the construction site, simply so they can deny that it exists," said Paolo Foietta.

At the heart of the issue is the 5-Star Movement's identity as a protest movement is tied to the No-TAV campaign, and the 5-Stars' credibility has been shaken by its approval for several other major infrastructure projects that it previously opposed.

The movement's founder, comic Beppe Grillo, joined the front line of the No-TAV protests back in 2010. And when the 5-Stars first won seats in Parliament in 2013, newly minted lawmakers made a pilgrimage to the Val di Susa, near the border with France, birthplace of the No-TAV movement.

"If they betray this battle, they betray themselves," said Mario Cavagna, a 73-year-old environmental engineer and activist. ''We taught them something (about developing a movement.) We don't know yet if they learned well what we taught. ... We have a lot of hope but a healthy distrust."