"We await with confidence the decision of the European Commission, which should arrive during the day," he told France Inter radio.

Sources told Reuters this week that Alstom was set to gain EU antitrust approval to buy the business, a deal which would make the French rail maker the world's second largest behind Chinese leader CRRC Corp.

Poupart-Lafarge also said Alstom, which makes French TGV high-speed trains, had received expressions of interest from possible buyers of its Reichshoffen site in France.

(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; editing by John Stonestreet)