Jean-Cyril Spinetta’s SNCF report to the government on Thursday morning suggests ending the railway workers’ special status.
A stripping report submitted Thursday, February 15 to Prime Minister Edouard Philippe advocates deep reforms of the SNCF , in particular a transformation into a public limited company and the end of the status of railway employee .
Ordered to the former president of Air France Jean-Cyril Spinetta, this 127-page document “unambiguously demonstrates the need and the urgency to start without delay a refoundation of our rail system,” said Matignon in a statement, welcoming the report as “a complete and lucid diagnosis”.
Mr Spinetta’s 43 proposals “must now be the subject of an in-depth review by the government and a dialogue with all stakeholders”, which will start “as early as next week,” the services announced. of the head of the government Edouard Philippe.
“Some elements of the report”, such as “the aging of the network, (…) are worrying, the drift of the public accounts is worrying,” Spinetta told reporters.
“The SNCF, through a few refocuses on its relevance, after a better responsibility of the actors, has all the means, in this new competitive universe, to play its assets and to take up all the challenges which it has been confronted and will face.”
“The French railway has before him, if it takes the appropriate measures, all the conditions for a sustainable future where it will continue to gain market share compared to other mobility offers offered to the French”, insisted Mr. Spinetta .
“Refocusing rail transport”
He believes in his report that “the situation of rail transport is worrying” and that its “performance is not satisfactory, in terms of regularity, crisis management, information to travelers, security.”
“The aging of the network does not explain everything, far from it”, he underlines, pointing to the drift of costs, a financing of the railway system “seriously unbalanced” and more generally “the absence of real incentives to efficiency “.
The former head of Air France believes that it is necessary to “refocus the rail transport on its area of relevance”, that is to say, the daily transport around cities and TGV services between major French cities.
J’ai reçu ce matin le rapport Spinetta : la refondation de notre modèle de transport ferroviaire est urgente. Je consulterai dès la semaine prochaine les acteurs concernés.
Notre objectif : améliorer la qualité de ce service public auquel les Français sont attachés. pic.twitter.com/O6zohEZd5Z
— Edouard Philippe (@EPhilippePM) February 15, 2018
He calls for an audit of “small lines”, which currently mobilize 16% of the resources devoted to rail, see less than 10% of trains and transport only 2% of travelers.
These should in his opinion be able to be closed more easily, “if the maintenance of circulation on a line is not possible without investment, and that investment is not justified from a socio-economic point of view”.
“The high-speed network can be considered as successful” and build new lines “would involve the TGV beyond its area of economic relevance, that is to say the services of very large cities with journeys up to three o’clock, “he says.
Attacking the status of railway workers, a potentially explosive subject, Mr. Spinetta suggests that new hires at the SNCF no longer benefit, as is already done for La Poste and Orange.
Transformation
He also believes that the SNCF should be able to “use for two years the procedure of voluntary redundancy plans”, to put an end to the “surplus of manpower that it manages as best as possible” following changes in activity – as in freight- and modernization actions.
And in the case of switching from line operations to competition – which should be possible for the TERs by the end of 2019 – “a law must lay down the principle of a compulsory transfer” of the staff, for Mr Spinetta.
As for the status of SNCF, already reformed in 2014, it should be reviewed again, transforming its two main components, SNCF Mobilités and SNCF Réseau, into public limited companies.
The current status of public establishment of industrial and commercial nature (Epic) ensures an unlimited guarantee of the State, which would be incompatible with the opening to competition for SNCF Mobilités and prohibit SNCF Réseau to reconstitute a debt ” unsustainable “.
Suggesting to get the stations in the lap of SNCF Network, Jean-Cyril Spinetta believes that the state should take “a share” of the heavy debt of SNCF network, which is expected to exceed 50 billion euros this year.
“SNCF Réseau should no longer go into debt beyond what would be its carrying capacity regardless of the implicit guarantee of the state” and “no longer invest at a loss,” he insists.
