Though the event had long been scheduled, it is tempting to see it as symbolic. On the morning of Friday, September 26, Jean Castex, CEO of the RATP, was at the La Villette maintenance workshops in Paris, a key meeting point between the metro and SNCF rail lines. The RATP was welcoming the new metro carriages for Line 10, which are set to begin commercial service on October 16. Just hours later, the Elysée Palace confirmed what everyone already knew: Castex was nominated to take over as head of the SNCF, succeeding Jean-Pierre Farandou.

Castex, who served as French prime minister from July 2020 to June 2022, is likely fulfilling one of his most personal ambitions. In the autumn of 2019, while still an unknown senior civil servant, he had applied to succeed Guillaume Pepy as head of the SNCF. He was unsuccessful: Instead, it was Farandou, a career railwayman who joined the SNCF in 1981, who took the helm in 2019. Yet Castex had already highlighted his qualifications: a deep passion for railways and, above all, strong experience in labor negotiations. That line on his résumé will matter. Having managed the RATP for nearly three years (since 2022), he will take over a company that is still reeling from a major reform at the start of President Emmanuel Macron's first term, and where unions remain powerful.

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