Fret SNCF will disappear on January 1, 2025 and will be replaced by two separate companies

This decision comes as part of a plan negotiated by the French State with the European Commission to avoid a recovery procedure which could have led to the liquidation of the company, which employs 5,000 employees.

Fret SNCF, the leading rail freight company in France, will disappear on January 1, 2025 to be reborn in the form of two separate companies called Hexafret for freight transport and Technis for locomotive maintenance, management announced on Monday, November 4. . This is the second stage of the plan negotiated by the French State with the European Commission to avoid a recovery procedure which could have led to the outright liquidation of the company, which employs 5,000 employees.

At the beginning of 2023, the Commission opened an investigation against the French State, suspected of having paid aid considered illegal to Fret SNCF between 2005 and 2019, for an amount estimated at 5 billion euros. The Minister for Transport at the time, Clément Beaune, chose to negotiate a “discontinuity plan” with European authorities.

“The SNCF fought alongside the State to obtain the most moderate discontinuity possible”explained to AFP Frédéric Delorme, president of Rail Logistics Europe, the holding company bringing together all SNCF freight activities (SNCF Freight, Captrain, combined transport, etc.). Fret SNCF was therefore forced to abandon 23 of the most profitable freight flows to the competition – Belgian, German and French operators – i.e. 20% of its turnover and 30% of its traffic.

This operation was carried out in the first half of 2024. The second stage, with the disappearance of Fret SNCF in favor of Hexafret and Technis, will take place on January 1 with the elimination of 500 jobs, or 10% of the workforce. According to the SNCF and the government, there will be no layoffs: all railway workers must be transferred to other companies in the railway group.

The disappearance of Fret SNCF, leader in the sector with an annual turnover of 700 million euros and almost half of the market share in France, “is very hard for railway workers“, recognized Frédéric Delorme. He believes that the conditions are met “to develop economically” despite the weakening of the company. In this context, all the SNCF unions asked to be received by the group's management this week.