Transports
Portrait: Jean-Pierre Farandou, the former railway worker who became CEO of SNCF
Simple and jovial, the SNCF boss is counting on his proximity to the base to prepare the railway group for competition. But the strike and the health crisis made him more of a firefighter than a strategist.
You balanced
This is the tile feared by any boss of the SNCF: on Sunday August 30, at the end of the afternoon, a power failure between Hendaye and Bordeaux paralyzes the TGV to Paris, in the middle of summer, forcing a thousand of travelers spending the night in crowded oars. No information to passengers, nothing to eat or drink: criticism is raining on social networks and the incident is looping in the media. At the company’s headquarters in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis), everyone is agitated to organize the evacuation of stranded customers and restore traffic as quickly as possible. The next day, Christophe Fanichet, general manager of the new SNCF Voyageurs subsidiary (overseeing TGV, TER and Transiliens), jumps on a train for Bordeaux while the civil security and the Red Cross offer breakfasts in the morning at the train station. Hendaye. But no sign of Jean-Pierre Farandou.
Admirer of Louis Gallois
Faithful to his will to “Not to get involved in everything” and leave “Senior executives facing their responsibilities” , the president of the group remains behind. A change of style that still surprises: “It is certain that a Guillaume Pepy would have gone there and disembarked the next day at Bourdin’s! “
