In brief: Guillaume Pepy, named new SNCF President

Posted on February 28, 2008 by Matthieu Desiderio

A nominee: Guillaume Pepy

The Elysée Palace (the Presidency) named Guillaume Pepy (49) as the new President of SNCF, the French National Railway Company. Previously Chief executive officer, he will succeed to Anne-Marie Idrac who was candidate to her own succession.

Guillaume Pepy has officially been designated as the new SNCF President on Wednesday, March 27, 2008 while Anne-Marie Idrac may join the European Commission next year, to replace Mr. Jacques Barrot, current Commissioner for Transport.

A mission: Presiding SNCF…

The nomination is one thing, the task is another: in the next two years, Guillaume Pepy will have to deal with a social reform of SNCF. By 2010, some 6,000 jobs will be “lost”, mostly retirement and reorganization. A “quest” that Pepy will have to pursue, against strong unions of the national railway.

One thing is quite positive though: unions are very SNCF-tradition-bound. In the last two years, they mostly reproached Anne-Marie Idrac to be “too far” from these traditions and they are now satisfied that the new President will be someone from “the inside.” They however still regret Louis Gallois for his closeness from SNCF blue collars. Railroaders were afraid of the Elysée Palace dropping one of their John Doe’s, and welcomed the decision of the Presidency to chose Mr. Pepy, who has been with the company since a while.

However, other unions reproached Mr. Pepy that he has been one of the SNCF policy leaders and policy makers for the last ten years. They are afraid that he pursues splitting the national company in different subsidiaries (depending on their activities), and eventually privatizing some of its activities, caring more about SNCF Group than about the 160,000 employees situations.

A lot to come for Guillaume Pepy… Will the “Eurostar Man” be able to deal with this new challenges?

References

Article: SNCF: Guillaume Pepy et les cheminots, des atouts maison mais de la défiance, AFP, Feb. 21, 2008: here
Article: SNCF : Idrac “heureuse et fière” de son action, Challenges, Feb. 21, 2008: here
Article: Pepy nouveau président de la SNCF, e-Lloyd, Feb. 21, 2008: here