In rage and despair, they turned and set fire to a car bearing the logo of their “MBF Aluminum” factory in front of the judicial district. On the body, tagged in red: “Renault assassin”, “State assassin”. The 270 employees of the foundry of Saint-Claude (Jura) had just learned of the decision of the Dijon commercial court, Tuesday, June 22, to put their company, a subcontractor mainly of Renault, into liquidation.
Painful conclusion of months of fighting, since the placement in receivership on November 4, 2020. Everything could have stopped in January, but the court granted, on two occasions, additional delays to find a buyer. In the meantime, the employees went on strike on March 31. In mid-May, on the eve of a hearing before the commercial court, the tension rose a notch when four of them began a hunger strike in Paris in front of the Ministry of the Economy and Finance. , while their colleagues threatened to blow up the factory if the only takeover offer was not accepted. The sentence had been postponed. Until June 22.
“The file, he just needed a helping hand from the state. But it is a hearse state! The government has chosen to liquidate the foundries ”, Nail Yalcin, CGT delegate
“We’ve been on strike for 83 days, we’ve been fighting … reacts Nail Yalcin, CGT delegate, in shock. The file, he just needed a helping hand from the state. But it is a hearse state! The government has chosen to liquidate the foundries: FVM, Poitou Fonte foundry, now MBF, whose turn? “ he got carried away, referring to two other foundries in liquidation, one in Meurthe-et-Moselle, the other in Vienne.
The sector is facing a crisis of these medium-term outlets while France voted to ban diesel and thermal engines for 2040. A study commissioned by the government and the automotive platform from the Roland Berger cabinet and reviewed May 2020 suggested consolidating the entire foundry sector in three years, with the help of the State, around “Two champions” national. But not without social disruption: it is necessary “Accept that we will not be able to save everyone”, said the report bluntly, announcing that “40% of jobs in the automotive foundry should disappear within ten years”, or more than 5,000 jobs.
“Saint-Claude is in mourning! “
At the end of April, the government and manufacturers agreed on a plan of 50 million euros to help retrain employees. But the latter hoped for investments to maintain the industrial tool. They also point to another evil: the relocation, by Renault and Stellantis, their main customers, of increasingly large production volumes to other sites in Europe.
In Saint-Claude, the only takeover offer had been made by a French entrepreneur Mickael Azoulay. In particular, it would have lacked funding. The socialist president of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region, Marie-Guite Dufay, on the run for her re-election, had recently mentioned a project for the region to enter the capital, as part of a public-private consortium. But the electoral calendar placed the court’s decision between the two rounds of regional elections.
On France Bleu Besançon Tuesday evening, she denounced “An unprecedented social catastrophe”. “Saint-Claude is in mourning! “, reacted the various right mayor of Saint-Claude Jean-Louis Millet in Progress. For months, employees have never ceased to recall the weight of this closure for the city which has already lost more than 2,000 inhabitants in ten years.