For an industrial & commercial town with a population of around 42,000 I think the rail service is not great - roughly every 2 hours from/to Toulouse with a couple of commuter extras in the morning. Noticeable that the three hybrid units parked up in the yard don't look as if they have been used for a while.
Most French provincial cities don't have much in the way of suburban railway networks, and when they do it's often just a few peak-hour trains. Very unlike all the metros and tramways the cities run. The high subsidy levels from the regions should give much better regional networks than in Britain, but often the result is not that impressive.
So when Macron announced a couple of months ago a new programme of "
RER métropolitains" It was seen as filling a gap. it turns out not to be a new idea at all, but might now get somewhere with a sprinkling of
état. Note that none of the plans I've seen involves any new tunnels, since in general those cities have a railway going through a central station.
Strasbourg has its "REME" that's just started, but in a small way: I don't think it has any new or joined routes, and mostly two tph. So the name is being applied to a wider range of small improvements across the metropole, and includes longer-distance buses as well. Bordeaux also has plans for three lines, this time linked ones through the centre.
Toulouse had a sketchy plan already, but some in the city - notably the mayor - are sceptical. Of course they have the city transport to worry about (metro, trams, buses) and expect the region to take care of the TER (which is what would turn into an RER). He was quoted as saying he had no objections to a plan that didn't exist, but more specifically that he didn't want a centime of his funds going towards it.
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