SNCM

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Société nationale maritime Corse-Méditerranée (SNCM) was a French ferry company operating in the Mediterranean. Its ferries sailed from Marseille, Toulon, Nice on mainland France, Calvi, Bastia, Ajaccio, Ile Rousse, Propriano, and Porto Vecchio on Corsica, Porto Torres on Sardinia, Algiers, Oran, Skikda and Bejaia in Algeria as well as Tunis in Tunisia and Genoa in Italy. Since 2016 the fleet of SNCM went to a new company, Corsica Linea. SNCM traces its history back to 1850. In September 2005, French Prime minister Dominique de Villepin presented a project of privatization of the company. Villepin was to hand out the SNCM to Butler Capital Partners for 35 million euros, after a previous "recapitalisation" of 113 million euros (injection of new capital by the state). However, this project caused a public outcry, as it put into question the balancing out principle of public transports (péréquation), meaning that to insure the continuity of the national territory and the equality of all concerning this important territorial continuity. In other words, the state-owned SNCM was to insure transport between the mainland and Corsica all year long, even though in exclusive market terms it may not be profitable, so that Corsicans can access administrative services as well as any other Frenchman. Moreover, Walter Butler was Villepin's schoolmate and friend from l'ENA, the elite public servants school. Following hard negotiations and a strike by the CGT trade-union and the Corsican Workers' Trade Union (STC), a new project was presented.