[ARCHIVE ENTRY — Intergenerational Voices Project]
Ref: IVP-2026-07
Interviewee: [MOHAMMED]
Interviewer: [SOLEINA]
Location: [LACOURNEUVE], recorded [15.07.2026]
Language: French (English translation below)
Context: the interviewee’s grandchild’s semester abroad at SOAS
ME: Well, you know I’m going on an exchange program to London next year.
GRANDFATHER: Yes.
ME: To get there, I’m trying to travel sustainably. Well, first, there’s the train that drops me off at Gare du Nord in Paris, then I take the Eurostar, and after that, I’m a 20-minute walk from my apartment there, so I’ll just walk. That emits 2.15 kg of CO₂.
GRANDFATHER: Well, you could take the subway instead of walking; it just pollutes a little.
ME: That’s true. But if you were me, what would have been your most eco-friendly way to get there?
MY GRANDFATHER: I prefer the train; it’s more comfortable. Yes, it takes longer than flying, but there’s less pollution that way.
ME: What about a car?
GRANDFATHER: Yeah, a car is better, but it’s tiring if you are driving alone. Plus, gas is expensive if you are alone because you can’t split the cost. And flying, apart from the pollution, is expensive, and there’s overbooking.
ME: In your whole life, what do you think is the most sustainable trip you’ve ever taken? Like when you go to Morocco, for example.
GRANDFATHER: Well, in Morocco, there’s no high-speed train all the way to Bayonne, only to Bordeaux.
But there was no high-speed train. You have to take the regular train.
ME: But have you ever taken the train to Morocco? I thought you always drove there.
GRANDFATHER: Even before that, before that, I had French papers from 1976 through 1980. When I brought my wife and kids back, I came by train.
ME: Really!? I didn’t know that!!
GRANDFATHER: I had to fly to France, to Paris, before your grandmother and my kids arrived. And the next day, I called my brother and told him, “Tomorrow, you’ll take my kids and my wife and bring them to Tangier to catch the boat.” And the next morning, I took the train from Paris to Algeciras.
ME: Where is Algeciras?
GRANDFATHER: It’s the border between Morocco and Spain. And then, as soon as my wife and kids got off the boat, I picked them up, and we left right away by train. I took the sleeper train; it was a six-person cabin for me, my wife, and our four kids. We stayed on the train until the next day, that was 36 hours on the train.
ME: But there is a train that goes all the way down from Spain to Paris?
GRANDFATHER: Yes. Of course. We arrived at the station in the 14th arrondissement in Paris.
ME: What you did helped with climate action and the 13th SDG. Even if it was not conscious, you helped, and now I am doing it too, but consciously.
https://ecopassenger.org
www.carbonindependent.org/23.html
https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal13
