THE chairman and CEO of French National Railways (SNCF), Jean Castex, has replaced Christophe Fanichet as chairman and CEO of SNCF Passenger, in a move that is widely seen by local media as marking a change in strategy for the passenger operating business.
According to SNCF, Fanichet retains the full confidence of Castex and will take up a new role within the company. Castex has made two appointments to replace him. The SNCF Passenger board will be chaired by Laurent Trevisani, currently deputy CEO, strategy and finance, at SNCF, while the post of CEO at SNCF Passenger will be taken up by Jean-Aimé Mougenot, currently head of the TER regional operating business.
Building on the positive results achieved by SNCF Passenger under Fanichet, when turnover increased by 24% from €16.8bn in 2019 to €20.9bn in 2025 and high-speed traffic grew by 19% over the same period, Castex now intends to implement a new strategy for the business.
A new management structure based on decentralisation, performance and maintaining the unity of SNCF as whole will be implemented at the start of next year. This change is widely interpreted as marking the end of the Destination 2030 internal restructuring plan proposed by Fanichet, intended to enable SNCF Passenger to meet the challenges of increasing competition.
According to media reports, Destination 2030 intended to restructure SNCF Passenger on the lines of the different markets it serves - high-speed, regional and Paris commuter services, conventional long-distance services and overnight trains - while creating new local subsidiaries to bid for the TER operating contracts tendered by the French regions.
At the same time, however, the plan wanted to centralise certain functions at head office level, which according to French news outlet Le Tribune runs contrary to Castex’s own preference for maximum decentralisation and having all support functions as close to the ground as possible.
Since taking up the post of SNCF chairman and CEO in November 2025, Castex has been meeting staff across the organisation. The change in direction at SNCF Passenger may go some way to ease the concerns of rail unions over the fragmentation of SNCF as a whole through the creation of new regional subsidiaries.
