A page in the history of the French railroad became this Sunday. After monopoly decades, SNCF travelers had to leave their place in Transdev in the Marseille-Nice regional line, after the call for tenders launched by the region as part of the opening to the competition of the French railroad required by the European Commission.
This witness passage is not to the taste of unions. The CGT and Sud Rail organized a demonstration on Monday in Marseille Saint Charles on Monday to denounce this opening to the competition that, according to them “the public service.
“We have been denounced to open the competition for months. We are in favor of an integrated company, not a fragmented company. The fact of fragmenting everything is not good for public service,” François Tejedor, general secretary of the CGT Cheminot Paca, Majority Union, told AFP.
“We do not say it in a dogmatic way, since the English will return, after decades to open to a disastrous competition. The Germans are in great difficulties. The Belgians, unlike the recommendations of the European Commission, decided to make a direct allocation to the historical operator,” he lists.
“The Marseille site is very pushed by these openings, with the arrival of Trenitalia also in the Paris line. We have a real anxiety climate and trade union organizations have deposited a social alarm,” explains Julien Troccaz, federal secretary of Sud Paca, which specifies that a strike notice has been presented.
Transdev is subject to the same network risks as the SNCF
“They left in a logic of the railway SMEs, to play everyone in the small rail. Except that the rail system is not that, it is an integrated system that forces to have collaborations or group,” adds the trade unionist.
The unions also dispute the very negative observation carried out by the region compared to the quality of the service issued by SNCF travelers, denouncing a punctuality rate of 84.7%, the lowest of all TER networks. What justifies the change of operator.
According to the figures of the Ter Management communicated by Sud Rail to the BFM business, this figure must be specified. According to this organization, between January 1 and June 28, 2025, the regularity rate in opening operations by SNCF Travelers was actually 96%, if we excluded infrastructure problems (tracks, catenaries) and problems with other trains.
In addition, even with the new trains, Transdev is subject to the same whims of the network as SNCF travelers with an ancient and fragile road, especially during the heat wave periods.
“We noticed yesterday (Sunday, editor’s note), faced delays related to network problems,” says Julien Troccaz. And, in fact, for their first circulation, some Ter Zou operated by Transdev have accused more than an hour late.
“The operator is … only operator. He has no managers or the stations served. Therefore, punctuality is a shared responsibility: by the operator of the availability of his equipment and staff; by the Network administrator, which is the only one that provides traffic authorizations.
Elimination
“Then, even if Transdev achieves its 97% objectives, we will be at the same level. Particularly manipulative encounter such as Renaud Musellier (President of the Region, Editor’s note) speaks of 20% of the Irregularities of SNCF when comparing it with the objectives of 97% transdev,” Raille Fabien Villedieu of the Rail de Sud with the BFM business.
Thierry Mallet, CEO of Transdev, explains, on the contrary, to trust “a very decentralized organization” to “succeed in delivery as we do in a daily way in Germany.”
Of course, it is still too early to draw conclusions from these first days of commercial exploitation. Especially because Transdev must administer other difficulties: a fleet of new incomplete trains to “unlock” (youth defects), inexperienced drivers and a heterogeneous fleet with older trains provided by other regions to compensate for Alstom’s delays.
Source: BFM TV
