Chronic. While the railroaders tread on the pavement in the hope of derailing the reform of SNCF, the State, right in his boots, buys trains. At the end of a meeting with the executives of Alstom and Siemens, economy minister Bruno Le Maire, could help to distill the good news : the State controls 100 TGV Alstom. The State ? Aware of slip of the tongue, the minister fixes. This will be the SNCF, of course, that the board of directors has not yet met, but who supported the thing in April. A detail therefore. But one detail which says it all.
While the government throws the France cheminote in the street with her plans of opening up to competition and the planned end of the status, it keeps some old reflexes time before. The blessed, where each industrial sector was driven by a State-owned enterprise led by a high-ranking official who took her instructions in the palace of the Republic. Instructions of which the political character prevails on the rest.
Thus, the SNCF has long been the annex of the ministry of industry and the development of the territory. Was it to save the industry mechanical French and rurality forgotten. All noble objectives and justified, but also be contradictory with the will displayed by the government, to give more independence to the national company in the interest of greater economic efficiency and better service.
Change of status
At the end of 2016, it was to save Belfort, the historical factory of Alstom, under threat of closure by its parent company. In emergency, the power of a command surprise to trains TGV for a row that does not exist (Bordeaux-Toulouse). In the same year, Alstom won a call for tenders that is tailored for the design of the TGV of the future with the SNCF. Since then, the orders were to wait. The pressure of the trade unions was strong to accelerate the decision and fill out the support sites…
