Eurostar: new boss, same as the old boss? Christophe Fanichet to take over as CEO

Announced today, in post 1st December, Christophe Fanichet (bio on Wikipedia) will replace Gwendoline Cazenave as CEO of Eurostar Group (bio on Wayback Machine - she has already been removed from Eurostar's website). News confirming it from Le Figaro here.Eurostar then is replacing someone who had worked 20 years for SNCF (Cazenave) with someone who worked 18 years for SNCF (Fanichet). No surprise I suppose, as Eurostar Group is - post merger with Thalys - SNCF Voyageurs (55.75%), CDPQ (19.31%), NMBS/SNCB (18.5%) and Federated Hermes Infrastructure (6.44%). SNCF calls the shots, in other words.But the name is perhaps a little surprising, given Jean Castex as boss of SNCF dispensed with Fanichet as head of SNCF Voyageurs in July. This Challenges article gives some useful background about the reasons - about how Fanichet's determination to split SNCF Voyageurs into a more clearly for-profit part, and a PSO operations part, did not gain the favour of either Castex or the trade unions.…