Bruno Le Maire summoned the president and CEO (CEO) of SNCF, Jean-Pierre Farandou, in the coming days to “be accountable” regarding an agreement reached with the unions on the end of careers , which the Minister of Economy and Finance described, Thursday, May 2, as “unsatisfactory” and “provocative.”
“I, along with others, have partly the supervision of the SNCF, in particular the financial supervision. An agreement is signed which effectively commits the balances of the pension reform and the financial balances of the SNCF. I was not warned,” declared Mr. Le Maire, interviewed on BFM-TV-RMC.
On April 22, the four representative unions of the SNCF signed an agreement with management on the end of the careers of railway workers, a rare unanimity within the public railway group, which made it possible to ward off the threat of a new strike of controllers during the May bridges.
The agreement, criticized by the right, which accuses it of circumventing the pension reform, provides, among other things, an improvement in the early retirement system, in particular for railway workers who have held positions of proven arduousness.
The minister summoned Mr. Farandou “in the very next few days” so that he “reports to him on this agreement which gives a feeling of double standards and which is very provocative for many of our hard-working compatriots who have accepted the pension reform”.
“I want him to explain to me how he finances this agreement that he concluded with the unions without us being informed,” declared Bruno Le Maire. “This agreement is not satisfactory in my eyes and there was a dysfunction (…) it poses financial problems,” he asserted. The minister recalled that the State had helped the SNCF to rebalance its accounts with 35 billion euros of debt recovery in 2018 and that it was “right” to hold it accountable.
