This is a new blow for the industry in the region. The steel giant Arcelor Mittal announced Tuesday, November 19, 2024, the possible closure of two industrial service sites, in Reims (Marne) and Denain (North). In total, 130 jobs would be lost. The elected officials of Denaisis are alarmed by this new bloodletting.
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The day after their management's announcement, employees at the ArcelorMittal site in Denain went on strike. They occupy the site which is at a standstill. Ludovic Bouvier of the CGT-Metallurgie says: “they have just taken a massive blow. They didn't expect it.”. He continues: “Symbolically, it's important because it's Denain with its trauma. The little that remains of the steel industry is being taken away from us. It's not possible. We have just experienced Valdunes, an appendage of Usinor and it continues”.
Symbolically, it's important because it's Denain with his trauma. What little remains of the steel industry is being taken away from us.
Ludovic Bouvier, CGT-Metallurgie 59/62
In a press release, the management of the steel giant explains: “The management of the ArcelorMittal Service Centers company brought together the members of its CSE to inform them of a project to reorganize the company and adapt its production capacities. This project includes the possible shutdown of the ArcelorMittal Service Centers production sites in Reims and Denain.
The metallurgical giant, which has around forty sites in France and employs 15,000 people, cites a difficult economic context.
Immediately, elected officials in the sector reacted to this announcement which concerns around thirty jobs in the North in Denain.
The deputy for the North, Sébastien Chenu (National Rally) recalls that the territory has been severely affected by site closures for 40 years: “This is a new hard blow for our industry, particularly in my constituency after the recent mobilizations of workers like in Valdunes, while the closures of Etex-Eternit or Usinor are still vivid in everyone's memory.”
The mayor of Denain, Anne-Lise Dufour-Tonini (Socialist Party) is very upset. She said on social media: “At a time when Denain is raising its head, at a time when Denain is recovering, at a time when 80 hectares of industrial wasteland are being reconverted for economic, industrial and commercial development, I take this announcement like a stab.”
ArcelorMittal France justifies this possible decision by “a difficult economic context”. One of its main markets, the automobile industry, has suffered a significant crisis since the Covid pandemic. The steel giant claims to be “faced with a sharp drop in activity among its industrial and automotive customers which has accelerated in recent months.
European steel faces competition from Chinese products. China is facing overproduction in its local market, and it is selling its steel to Europe by cutting prices. Today, nearly 30% of the European market is taken up by Chinese products.
For Ludovic Bouvier of the CGT-Metallurgie, this announcement, if it hurts Denain, portends others, more violent, in the automobile sector. “When profits decrease, from now on, we lay people off immediately. We are in a headlong rush and it is systematically the worker who wins.”
The management of ArcelorMittal France “invites the social partners to a future meeting at the end of November as part of the information-consultation process”. Employees should then know more about their future.
