The announcement of an offer to take over the Valdunes forge in Leffrinckoucke (North), near Dunkirk, by the Gironde group Europlasma came as a surprise at the beginning of January. The 320 employees of the only French company manufacturing wheels and axles for the railway industry were rather expecting interest in the Trith-Saint-Léger factory (North), near Valenciennes, the other site of the group let go by its Chinese shareholder MA Steel and placed in receivership on November 20, 2023. This is where the wheels coming out of the Leffrinckoucke forge are machined and heat treated. Neither the Czech Bonatrans nor the Italian Lucchini, Valdunes’ European competitors, showed up as hoped. On Wednesday January 17, the Lille commercial court granted a new deadline to Valdunes. It runs until Wednesday, January 24.
The offer from Europlasma, specialized in the treatment and recovery of hazardous waste, is conditional on the takeover of Trith-Saint-Léger by another industrialist. Only Interpipe, a Ukrainian group which has been carrying out tests there for around two weeks, could be likely to make an offer, but nothing has been finalized and time is running out.
According to our information, certain tests had to be repeated and Interpipe should say, this week, whether it considers them conclusive and whether it is submitting a takeover offer. “The fact that it is a non-European company whose production unit is in a country at war raises questions for us, of course,” confides Maxime Savaux, CGT delegate from Valdunes. But, for lack of any other option, it’s difficult to be choosy. The Europlasma solution also raises questions about its investment capacity excluding public aid, while those necessary for Valdunes are estimated at around 65 million euros over three years.
Europlasma’s delicate financial situation calls for caution. In 2021, he took over Tarbes Industry, transformed into Forges de Tarbes, the only French manufacturer of hollow bodies, these warheads then armed by Nexter to become the shells used by Caesar cannons. In September 2023, the CGT of the Tarbes factory expressed in The world its concern about the investments promised by Europlasma which are slow to materialize, while new orders have been recorded and although the State has granted 7.1 million euros in repayable advances to contribute to the planned investments (15 million ‘euros).
“We will ask for guarantees”
The future of the Forges de Gerzat project, announced with great fanfare at the start of 2022, is also worrying. There was then talk of Europlasma building a factory in Cébazat (Puy-de-Dôme) described as“unique in Europe” to remanufacture oxygen cylinders in this territory still marked by the trauma of the closure of Luxfer announced in November 2018. The result is 200 jobs created. We were then talking about an investment of 100 million euros, largely supported by the State, the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region and Clermont-Auvergne Métropole, which, combined, made it possible to finance half of the investment. A project ” delayed “, as Europlasma confirms in its latest financial report, mentioning “the evolution of raw material prices” And “the redefinition of the project”.
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