French rail worker paid to do nothing

AN employee of France’s national rail operator SNCF has disclosed he has been paid €5,000 (£3,550) per month to do absolutely “nothing” for 12 years.

However, rather than being delighted with the situation, Charles Simon has filed a complaint for “compensation”, saying the sinecure put the brakes on his promising career.

Mr Simon told French media that his employer took him off his day job in 2003 after he blew the whistle on a case of suspected €20 million fraud.

Since then he has received €5,000 per month after tax while staying at home, with the status “available” for work. “Each month I receive a new salary statement and a bank transfer. Last month, just like every year in June, I also received a bonus of €600 for the holidays,” he told BFM TV. In 2003, Mr Simon, from Saint Quentin in the Aisne department, northern France, said he was working for a subsidiary of SNCF called Geodis Solutions, which handles transport logistics.

“After three years of normal activity, I discovered a fraud based on false disputed transport invoices amounting to €20 million,” he said. Part of the “misused funds” were due to go into building the new TGV Nord line, he told Le

Point. Other payments related to the E line of the overground RER network.

He said he alerted his managers, but was promptly moved from Geodis back to SNCF. However, instead of being given a new post, the company offered him no new role. He said he had no choice but to stay at home but contin- ued to be paid the same monthly wage.

However, rather than simply taking the money and enjoying his free time, he said he wrote several letters to Guillaume Pepy, the president of the SNCF, asking for “compensation”.

“I am asking for recognition for the wrong this has caused me because if I hadn’t been sidelined, I could have had a fine career,” he said.

He added that he hoped his predicament as a “whistleblower” would help others “placed in the cupboard” – given a sinecure – after exposing fraud.

Contacted by Le Point, SNCF confirmed Mr Simon was an employee and that he had already made a request for “damages”, which was rejected by the Paris workers’ tribunal in 2011.

It said it could not comment further given its continued “contractual link”.