16th September 2026
France is building something that might seem like a project from another age: a completely new 107-kilometre canal across northern France.
But this is not about pleasure boats or tourism. The Seine-Nord Europe Canal is a huge piece of freight infrastructure designed to move thousands of tonnes of goods between France and the major waterways of northern Europe.
And it comes with a very modern price tag.
The project is now expected to cost around €7.3 billion, equivalent to roughly $8.5 billion, making it one of Europe's major infrastructure projects. The original financial agreement put the cost at €5.1 billion, but inflation, changes in standards, design developments and the revised construction timetable have pushed the expected final cost substantially higher.
A new waterway across northern France
The canal will run from Compiègne, north-east of Paris, to Aubencheul-au-Bac, near Cambrai, where it will connect with the existing northern French waterway network.
It will be 54 metres wide and 4.5 metres deep, allowing much larger freight vessels to use it than many parts of the existing French canal system.
The largest vessels will be able to carry up to about 4,400 tonnes of goods. That is roughly equivalent to the cargo carried by 220 lorries.
The canal will include six major locks plus a junction lock, 62 road and rail crossings and three canal bridges. One of those bridges will carry the canal over the Somme for approximately 1.3 kilometres.
This is therefore not simply a matter of digging a ditch and filling it with water. It is a major civil-engineering project involving bridges, locks, ports, roads, railways and water-management infrastructure.
Why build a canal in the 21st century?
The answer is freight.
The canal forms the central French section of the Seine-Scheldt European waterway network, connecting the Seine basin with the waterways of Belgium and the Netherlands.
That potentially links major ports including Le Havre, Rouen, Dunkirk, Antwerp and Rotterdam into a much more efficient inland freight network. The wider European network contains around 20,000 kilometres of major waterways.
The economic argument is straightforward.
Moving large quantities of heavy goods by water can be considerably more efficient than moving them by road. A single large barge can replace hundreds of lorry journeys.
That could take pressure off France's roads, reduce freight traffic and provide manufacturers, farmers and logistics companies with another way of getting goods to European markets.
It is also part of a broader European attempt to move freight away from roads and towards rail and waterways.
It is also an industrial project
The canal is expected to create opportunities for new logistics centres, warehouses and industrial development alongside the waterway.
That is important because infrastructure of this scale can have effects far beyond the actual construction project.
Ports and distribution centres tend to develop around good transport connections. Companies that currently rely heavily on road transport may eventually find it attractive to locate close to the new waterway.
The French authorities therefore see the canal not merely as a transport project but as a way of encouraging economic development in some of the regions through which it passes.
Construction itself is also expected to provide thousands of jobs. At the height of the work, around 6,000 people are expected to be involved, including approximately 3,000 jobs directly created by the canal project.
But the bill has grown dramatically
This is perhaps the most interesting part of the story for anyone watching major infrastructure projects.
The original 2019 financing agreement envisaged an investment of €5.1 billion.
By early 2026, the official target cost had risen to €7.3 billion.
The project organisation says the increase reflects inflation, the passage of time, changes to regulations and safety and environmental requirements, together with the detailed design work that has taken place since the original estimates were produced.
That represents an increase of roughly 43% compared with the original €5.1 billion figure.
It is a familiar problem with very large infrastructure schemes. A project that looks affordable when first proposed can look very different by the time construction is well under way.
The difference is that France has continued with the project.
And France is thinking long term
The canal is currently scheduled to be completed around 2032, according to the latest project information. Work is already under way, including major lock construction and other infrastructure.
There is also a significant environmental element.
More than 1,200 hectares of planting and environmental improvements are planned, while the project says that almost three trees will be replanted for every tree removed. Wetlands, ponds, ecological banks and wildlife crossings are being incorporated into the scheme.
There is an obvious irony here. Building a 107-kilometre canal inevitably involves major disruption to the landscape, yet the long-term argument is that shifting freight from thousands of road journeys to waterways can reduce environmental damage.
A lesson for Britain?
There is a wider question here.
Britain has historically been very good at building infrastructure when a strategic need has been identified. But modern British infrastructure projects often become caught up in lengthy planning processes, rising costs and arguments over whether projects are affordable.
France is not immune to those problems. Its canal has already seen a substantial increase in its projected cost.
But the French government and regional authorities have nevertheless decided that the strategic benefits justify spending billions on a piece of infrastructure that could take decades to repay its cost.
The Seine-Nord Europe Canal is therefore about much more than digging 107 kilometres of waterway.
It represents a bet on the future of European freight, on inland waterways, on regional economic development and on the idea that major infrastructure should sometimes be built not simply for today's economy but for the economy that governments hope to create tomorrow.
Whether that bet ultimately pays off remains to be seen.
But there is something striking about watching France build a new 107-kilometre canal in the 21st century while much of Europe struggles to expand its transport infrastructure.
Sometimes the old ideas are not quite as old-fashioned as they appear.