Just like the airline industry and multiple companies, SNCF has been severely affected by the health crisis. Cope, Jean-Baptiste Djebbari, announced in an interview with le Figaro, that the State will help the group "to the tune of several billion euros." "Several options are on the table : the recapitalisation of the group or the reversal of a supplementary part of the debt, for example", explains the minister for Transport. Are we going to use one option rather than another, or mix of solutions ?" he continues, emphasizing that "the trade-offs have not yet been made".
in Mid-June, the CEO of the SNCF, Jean-Pierre Farandou felt that the crisis of the Covid-19 is expected to cost alone almost four billion euros of revenue to the rail operator. If we add the loss of revenue related to the strikes against the pension reform, estimated at one billion euros, the shortfall for the station is around € 5 billion since last December. "If the State invests considerable sums of money, it expects in return that the SNCF has a performance-economic, environmental, and social high-level", warns the deputy minister.
"We hope that within ten years, the rail network will be modernized; so that we can circulate without a hitch passenger trains, day or night, as well as freight trains. For this, it is necessary to maintain the course of the reform of 2018; that is to say, an investment of several billion euros per year until 2022 in order to regenerate the rail network," he continued.
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Relaunch the rail freight
"A help that is strong enough could allow the SNCF to return to balance as soon as possible. To be clear, he is not to return to the manufacture of the debt," underlines Jean-Baptiste Djebbari. It also indicates the wish to "revive the rail freight in France" and have proposed to the Prime minister "to lower the tolls for the companies that operate on the national network". The government aims also "to raise by 2022 two night trains additional, why not, a Paris-Nice to start", said the minister delegate.
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"The State will initially fund the renovation of the existing rolling stock prior to considering the purchase of new trains to develop a european network broader, more long-term," he says. The "small lines", "the State will continue to mobilize co-financing resulting to renovate a maximum of other lines", he promises.
