The vast hall was hot and packed as Anne-Marie Idrac, head of France's SNCF rail monopoly, stepped up to the podium to give the traditional new year address to staff last week.

Despite the strikes that pitched management against railworkers and paralysed the country for days in October, Ms Idrac praised the achievements of 2007 that would set Europe's second-largest rail group up for a future of open competition: a new high-speed rail line connecting France with cities in Germany, Switzerland and Luxembourg; a separate speed record that will bring France's provincial cities closer together; and finally a financial transformation putting the state-owned company's reporting practices on a par with the best private companies.