France's Minister for Transport, Housing and Public Infrastructure, Jean-Claude Gayssot announced in July 1997 the creation of 2,000 new jobs at the SNCF railway company, in exchange for a reduction in the state-owned company's indebtedness. He also confirmed the separation to be made between the management of infrastructure and the operation of the rail network.
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France's Minister for Transport, Housing and Public Infrastructure, Jean-Claude Gayssot announced in July 1997 the creation of 2,000 new jobs at the SNCF railway company, in exchange for a reduction in the state-owned company's indebtedness. He also confirmed the separation to be made between the management of infrastructure and the operation of the rail network.
Jean-Claude Gayssot, one of the three Communist ministers in the Government which came to power in June 1997, announced his guidelines on a very sensitive issue for the unions - that of the future of the SNCF railway company - even before the financial "audit" of the French economy requested by the Prime Minister was published. On 10 July, Mr Gayssot set out three major decisions. SNCF will create a further 2,000 new jobs: 1,000 jobs with railway worker status and a further 1,000 within the context of the future law on job creation for young people (the plan to create 700,000 new jobs) which is to enter the statute books in autumn 1997. The jobs created will almost entirely cancel the 2,500 redundancies planned by the company this year.
In return, the Government has agreed to reduce SNCF's indebtedness by FRF 20 billion. The debt had previously been reduced from FRF 202 billion to FRF 68 billion by the former Government, thanks to a transfer of FRF 134.2 billion of debt to Réseau Ferré de France (RFF) the new owner of the rail infrastructure (FR9702113N). This decision will bring down the total debt to FRF 48 billion and will reduce financial expenses by FRF 1.2 billion. SNCF should thus be able to break even, a stage originally planned for the end of 1998, more quickly.
The setting up of RFF itself has not been challenged. The Minister pointed out that on this matter he was "neither in favour of the status quo nor of backtracking". He now intends to alter the reform approved in February 1997.
Railway trade union organisations have on the whole given a cautious opinion on these guidelines. They see a "possible opening" for discussions with the company management. The CGT (Confédération générale du travail), the CFDT (Confédération française démocratique du travail) and Sud Rail, which were at the time firmly opposed to the creation of RFF (as was the Left in Parliament), consider that the review of a separation between management of infrastructure and operation of the rail network is indispensable "to guarantee rail workers' employment status and to develop public services".
Eurofound recommends citing this publication in the following way.
Eurofound (1997), Jobs created at SNCF, article.
