The Channel Tunnel, from pipe dream to European reality
This Monday marks 30 years since France and the United Kingdom officially opened the Channel Tunnel. It was the culmination of two centuries of dreaming about linking the two neighbours by land.
Issued on:
"England is no longer an island," French newscasters solemnly announced in their evening bulletins of 6 May 1994 (conveniently forgetting that it never had been).
At 12.40pm that afternoon, a Eurostar from London had pulled into Coquelles, northern France.
It was carrying the first official guests to travel under the English Channel by rail: Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip.
They were greeted by French President François Mitterrand, who had made the less exciting journey from Paris aboard a sister Eurostar.
"It's the first time in history that the heads of state of France and Great Britain have met without having to take either the boat or a plane," the Queen said in precise, clipped French.
Hands were shaken, national anthems played and a symbolic ribbon was cut.
Then Mitterrand and Elizabeth II piled into the royal Rolls Royce and boarded Le Shuttle, the train that carries vehicles through the tunnel.
Some 35 minutes later they were in Cheriton, on the southern English coast.
"When Britain and France agree to work together and pool their natural and human resources, they achieve great things," the French president declared.
It had only taken them almost 200 years.
Two centuries in the making
The first time anyone seriously proposed tunnelling under the Channel was in 1802, when French mining engineer Albert Mathieu-Favier tried to interest Napoleon Bonaparte in an undersea highway for horse-drawn carriages.
His design included ventilation spouts that would tower above the waves and an artificial island in the middle where coachmen could change horses.
But though Napoleon seemed to consider the idea, it was effectively sunk when Britain declared war on France the following year.
Engineers continued to toy with the notion throughout the 19th century. Some searched for alternatives to the daunting task of mining the seabed: what about a tube lowered from the surface? Or a floating tunnel roped to buoys?
As technology advanced and rail took off, geographical surveys determined the sea floor held a thick layer of chalk – a material pliable enough to dig through but strong enough to hold its shape, ripe for tunnelling.
By the 1870s, both the French and British governments had tentatively given agreement and companies were formed on both sides of the Channel to advance the scheme.
They even got as far as drilling. By 1883, the first kilometres of a tunnel had been bored from Shakespeare Cliff on the English side and Sangatte on the French coast.
But the British government quickly cooled. With Europe still volatile, military commanders argued that a tunnel would allow enemies to invade.
One general called it "a constant inducement to the unscrupulous foreigner to make war upon us".
Surely Britain wouldn't surrender its natural sea defences and endanger its freedom "simply in order that men and women may cross to and fro between Britain and France without running the risk of seasickness," Sir Garnet Wolseley wrote in a memorandum.
Drilling was promptly called off, and wouldn't resume for more than 100 years.
Over or under?
By the time planes meant water could no longer stop potential invaders and two world wars had cemented the alliance between France and the UK, the defence argument no longer held.
Some even argued a tunnel would represent a military advantage, helping the UK rush troops and supplies to assist France in the event of fresh hostilities.
But the stickier question was who would pay for it. By then both British and French railway companies were publicly owned, meaning the two governments would be on the hook for one of the most expensive infrastructure projects ever attempted.
Accordingly, London and Paris went slowly – expressing themselves in favour of the scheme in theory, but taking years to examine cost-benefits and feasibility.
By 1960, no firm project had emerged and a private consortium swooped in with a bid to move things forward – not with a tunnel, but a bridge.
It would stretch from Calais to Dover, they promised, resting on more than 160 vast concrete pillars in the sea. Tall enough to allow ships to pass underneath, it would offer two railway tracks, five lanes for cars and two cycle paths.
See the model in this archive French news footage:
Later, the proposal evolved into a complicated bridge-tunnel hybrid that would see travellers drive several kilometres over the sea before plunging under the Channel and back out again onto another bridge to the opposite shore.
Designers added fanciful touches like specially built islands where motorists could stop for a swim, and heliports for those who preferred to save themselves part of the drive.
But engineers were less enthused. Building a bridge in one of the world's busiest, windiest shipping lanes would be technically difficult and wildly expensive, they pointed out – not to mention the risk that it might promptly be wrecked by off-course boats or enemy missiles.
Breaking ground
Consensus ultimately settled on a tunnel.
But negotiations between France and the UK advanced fitfully. While French leaders were gung-ho in public, urging the UK to demonstrate its resolve to be part – physically – of Europe, when it came to committing investment they were more reticent.
And British ministers, wary both of overspending and "too much" European integration, also dragged their feet.
In 1974 it looked like a publicly funded project might finally take off; but, with drilling machines lined up and ready to bore, a newly elected British government pulled out at the start of the following year.
By the 1980s, both the UK and France had new leaders: Margaret Thatcher and Mitterrand. They dusted off the tunnel project and this time decided it should be pursued with private money.
Momentum gathered from there. In 1986, the two countries signed the treaty that officially launched the project, and set a new land border between them in the chalk of the Channel floor.
French workers began tunnelling towards England in June 1988, mirrored by their British colleagues six months later.
They joined up in October 1990, a breakthrough that was subsequently restaged for the cameras on 1 December.
Three years and five months later, it was Queen Elizabeth and President Mitterrand shaking hands.
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One small step for a continent
Though the tunnel wouldn't open to the public for several more months, it was an historic day. And hopes were high for what it represented.
Mitterrand called it "a major asset for strengthening the European Union, a decisive element in the development and implementation of the single market, and a step towards bringing the peoples of Europe closer together".
Thirty years on, his grand predictions sound misplaced.
But 6 May 1994 was the start of something on a smaller scale. That night, as TV journalists earnestly questioned passersby whether they'd consider taking the tunnel – which would be worse, seasickness or claustrophobia, one presenter wondered – crossing the Channel by land still felt remote.
Now, whizzing up to 75 metres under the sea has become so normal most of us forget it was ever a big deal in the first place.
The trip between London and Paris – or Brussels, or Amsterdam, or Cologne – can be done before work, or after it. It might not be everyday for most people, but it is ordinary.
And that, surely, is worth celebrating.
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