Paris (AFP)

Mining engineer, but "not a traditional formatted": Jean-Pierre Farandou was chosen Wednesday to become boss of the SNCF, a company he has the advantage of knowing on the fingertips and where he seems to enjoy a priori rather favorable.

"You can not blame someone, if you entrust him with a mission in a given structure, to know it thoroughly!" Philippe Dorthe, general counselor PS of Bordeaux, is categorical: his childhood friend Jean-Pierre Farandou "knows all the cogs, all the details", and "can quite be a great president of the SNCF".

The challenge is great for this 62-year-old native of South West, who has kept a touch of focus. Operate an SNCF which will become in January 2020 a public limited company, work in good agreement with the unions, or even continue the renovation of the network while managing to make significant savings ...

"This is not a traditional formatted," says Philippe Dorthe. "Politicians must pay attention to all these people who come out of big bodies and have had transversal careers, where we know a little bit everything, but never thoroughly.He knows the history of the SNCF, and it is something that account to take him further. "

- "The discussion can take place" -

It is fully aware of the projects to lead that Jean-Pierre Farandou, sporty look and thick eyebrows, arrives at the head of the public group, after long denied any interest in the job.

CEO of the operator Keolis - SNCF's public transport line - since 2012, he joined the SNCF in ... 1981, after an early career at the American mining company AMAX in Denver (Colorado, West ).

He had an upward trajectory, notably via the launch of the Paris-Lille TGV in 1993, the general management of Thalys International in Brussels (1993-1998), the director of HR Executives (1998-2000), before three years at the helm. the imposing SNCF Rhône-Alpes region.

Laurent Brun, General Secretary of the CGT-Cheminots, the first syndicate of the SNCF, practiced it on this occasion as an elected representative of the EC. "We were very opposed to the measures of the first freight plans in 2003-2004, but it gives me the impression that we have to find a balance between financial objectives, user expectations and the treatment of employees, these three facets being interdependent, so the discussion can take place. "

In Keolis since the end of 2004, Mr. Farandou explained to AFP last April that "the situation of the box is healthy", describing it as "the French leader in urban transport".

- "Pepy System" -

He also found time to be appointed twice as head of the Union of Public and Rail Transport (UTP), which represents the companies of the branch, from June 2015 to June 2017 and since June 2019; and to chair, for two years (2014-2016), the Board of Directors of the Orchester national d'Ile-de-France. Not so surprising from a classical music lover.

Philippe Dorthe, son like him of a teacher of the school Charles-Martin (in the district Bacalan, in Bordeaux), praises someone "with a lot of empathy for the people", which he would categorize as "a radical with social inclination ".

What reassure the unions? "All this still depends a lot on the mandate and the room for maneuver given by the government," said Laurent Brun.

"It's someone from the seraglio, it's the Pepy system", also warns Fabien Dumas, federal secretary of SUD-Rail, third union of the SNCF.

"Continue in the direction of the current president is not reassuring when we know the social situation of railway workers, their anxieties and managerial policy that is increasingly suffering," abounds Eric Santinelli, also federal secretary of SUD-Rail .

A pitfall in the career of Jean-Pierre Farandou: in March 2016, the rail gendarme (Arafer) had retorted his candidacy for the presidency of SNCF Réseau, citing "a legitimate doubt about the independence of the person concerned" due to his career at SNCF.

It was finally Patrick Jeantet, then Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Aéroports de Paris Group (ADP), which was preferred to him. Small revenge: Mr. Jeantet, 59, was also a candidate for the succession of Guillaume Pepy ...

© 2019 AFP