Ultimately, 70% for Framatome and 30% for Naval Group: the sale of Jeumont Electric to these two entities was announced on Wednesday June 14 by Philippe Garelli, its chairman and shareholder, during an extraordinary social and economic committee. It should take place by the end of 2023. Founded in 1898 and employing 500 people in Jeumont (Nord), Avesnois, Jeumont Electric manufactures electric motors and alternators for the nuclear energy, marine and industry.
A former subsidiary of Framatome, then of Areva, the company has belonged since 2007 to the French group Altawest, chaired by Philippe Garelli, and also has three small subsidiaries in Carquefou (Loire-Atlantique), Etupes (Doubs) and Champagne-sur-Seine ( Seine-et-Marne), as well as the one created in India in 2009. This represents a total of 720 employees.
“Why would Naval Group take 30% of Jeumont Electric, which is insufficient to have decision-making power and when it is able to manufacture our orders? What is his interest ? » asks Florian Brasseur, CGT delegate from Jeumont Electric. “Our order books are full”he assures and, if the site lost the contract for the thrusters with the cancellation of the Australian order for new submarines in September 2021, there remained the retrofit, namely the replacement of the old components of its current fleet. . “This can sustain our activity for the next twenty years. So, obviously, Naval Group is interested…”
“We have lost the trust of our suppliers”
“When there is a buyout or sale, it is very rare that it happens quietly and without breakage”worries Ludovic Bouvier, secretary general of the CGT Métallurgie in Hauts-de-France, who says he expects ” at worst “. Naval Group, for its part, refuses to comment on this operation.
Cramped on its Jeumont site – simply “separated by a wall of concrete blocks from that of Jeumont Electric”observes Mr. Bouvier –, Framatome, which did not respond to our requests, needs to quickly create a new production line there and has been multiplying the job dating to recruit in waves of one hundred people. The prospects opened up by Emmanuel Macron’s announcements on the construction of future EPRs and the rehabilitation of the existing nuclear fleet mean that Framatome is too confined within its walls. This major atom player in France (700 employees in Jeumont and Maubeuge) is redeploying in the Avesnois, where it is buying industrial wasteland such as Boussières-sur-Sambre, a village of 600 souls located about twenty kilometers from Jeumont.
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