The construction by the Banque de France of a new banknote factory in Vic-le-Comte, in Puy-de-Dôme, has lead in the wing: the institution warned Friday that this project would be abandoned without agreement by mid-July on a trade union dispute opened last December.
Unless a clear agreement is reached by mid-July following a final high-level negotiation proposed by the Banque de France with the social partners (…) the General Council (an internal body of the institution meeting on Friday morning , Editor’s note) can only decide to abandon the project, the central bank said in a press release.
This is aimed at the strike movement launched on December 2 at the current Chamalires factory about the competitiveness plan proposed by the management, which plans to reduce the number of agents around certain machines on the new site from 4 to 3.
The council deeply regrets this situation, while the very favorable social protocols of the current site would all be maintained, and that the management has until recent days proposed several positive solutions, continues the institution in its press release.
The decision of the General Council is completely irresponsible to balance a project which engages European sovereignty in terms of species with a social conflict by definition punctual, reacted to AFP the union delegate of the CGT Banque de France Hugo Coldeboeuf .
Another subject, and not the least, is at the center of concerns: that of the cost of this new printing press.
Successive delays in the very project to take over from the current Chamalires plant in 2026, some 30 kilometers from Vic-le-Comte, pushed the bill up to more than 250 million euros, compared to around 200 million euros in the end of 2016 estimate.
Blame it on inflation in the price of raw materials and construction according to management, on the procrastination of the General Council of the Banque de France according to the CGT Banque de France.
The indecision of the General Council to really launch the project which was however validated for the first time in 2018 has already cost millions of euros and poses a risk of sovereignty to France and the European Union, said the CGT in a letter dated Tuesday addressed to the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire and consulted by AFP.
If the project for a new factory were to be definitively abandoned, the central bank would work on a plan to maintain the current banknote manufacturing site.