He was chosen by Emmanuel Macron to take over from Guillaume Pepy. Jean-Pierre Farandou, this "cheminot first language" as he qualifies, will take officially in the day of Thursday, the head of the SNCF.
A pure railroad juice
After a long search for an external profile, a headhunter's office was even mandated, Emmanuel Macron finally changed his mind by taking a pure product of the house. This mining engineer joined SNCF in 1981 as station manager in Rodez, before climbing all the ladder. He became project manager of the TGV Paris-Lille, founder of Thalys, director of human resources, director of the Rhône-Alpes region and Keolis Lyon and director of the SNCF Proximités branch (Ile-de-France, TER and Intercités).
A new boss used to competition
Since 2012, this 62-year-old Bordelais was the boss of Keolis, a subsidiary of SNCF that operates bus and tram networks in many French cities, but also trains abroad, in Wales or in the suburbs. of Boston. Jean-Pierre Farandou is the man who has won many contracts, such as the Shanghai automated metro, an experience that will be valuable with the arrival of competition in the rail.
Because its main mission will be precisely to prepare the company for all the changes related to the railway reform, voted in June 2018, and which will take effect from 2020. At a time when all the unions of the company denounce the social unrest internally - restructurings , job cuts, end of status - he will have to convince them. The latter being shared between those who praise his social profile, and those who find him as the main defect to be the candidate wished by Guillaume Pepy.