Veolia Environnement News

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on Wednesday he would take steps "within hours" to end blockades of ports in Marseille and Corsica by workers of the SNCM ferry operator, who are striking over the firm's restructuring plans. Workers at the loss-making company partially owned by Veolia have been on strike since June 24, occupying ferries and blockading access to part of Marseille's port for 16 days over fears they will lose jobs and job privileges. The strike has left the island in part cut off from the mainland at the peak of the tourist season vital to Corsica's economy while holding up the flow of goods. Valls, who has warned repeatedly that the strike could condemn the SNCM "to death"…

Workers at France-Corsica ferry operator SNCM must end their strike and let the troubled company undergo a restructuring to secure its future, Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on Tuesday. Loss-making SNCM, whose unions have been on strike since June 24, risks bankruptcy and needs to be placed under court protection, Valls told TV station TF1 in an interview. "This situation cannot go on and there needs to be a court-ordered restructuring, because this company is sinking, and in fact the days of strike that accumulate are only putting it more into trouble," Valls said. The comments were even harsher than those of France's transport minister…

Veolia Environnement, a global leader in water and waste management, has a little local difficulty: an ailing France-Corsica ferry operator that weighs on its shares, gives its CEO nightmares and puts the brakes on its strategic plans. At the end of 2012, new Chief Executive Antoine Frerot decided to get out of transport to focus Veolia on its higher-margin water, waste andenergy businesses, and agreed with state-owned Caisse des Depots (CDC) that it would gradually stake over Veolia's stake in their joint venture Transdev, which runs trains, buses and taxis in about 20 countries. CDC had one condition - that Veolia keep Transdev's 66 percent stake in Societe Nationale Corse Mediterranee (SNCM), a loss-making ferry operator that once had a monopoly on France-Corsica routes.

Reuters - Loss-making France-Corsica ferry operator SNCM, which is partly owned by French water and waste group Veolia Environnement, plans to order four new ships, an SNCM spokesman said on Friday. The spokesman said the board had approved deals for four new ferries, two of them firm orders and two of them purchase options, to renew the fleet as part of a restructuring plan for the firm. He did not provide details on the vote or explain how the ferry operator plans to finance the purchases, with each ship estimated to cost 150 million to 170 million euros.