“We are both in the same sinking boat”: behind the social plans, faces and lives

In its columns, Charente Libre recounted these liquidations, these closures, gave a voice to union representatives, to demonstrators in front of the factories. But a few days before Christmas, we went to meet some of these anonymous people who have just lost their jobs. Sometimes after 30 years in the house.

“It’s not one out of two who has to get by, it’s both. »

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Mirtha Fort, 54 years old, and Olivier Papot, 47 years old, Lecas industry

“The first thing I thought of was our son, Mathieu, our house. I said to myself: we are in trouble,” remembers Olivier Papot, 47, when he thinks back to that day in September when the management of the Hamelin group came to the workshop, and announced to them that it was closing Lecas industry. That soon this diary factory where he has worked for 20 years, and his partner, Mirtha Fort, for 30 years, where they met and fell in love 15 years ago, will no longer exist. That neither of them will have a job anymore.

“It’s not one out of two who has to get by, it’s both. Today with a worker's salary, we cannot support a family,” he worries. “There, with 3,500 euros between us, we barely pay the bills, the house loan, the electricity…”

That evening, at home, they didn't even talk about it. “We each needed to digest,” describes Mirtha Fort. Of course, they had seen the production tool deteriorate… He was the driver of the main processing lines, she was a versatile team member. “We said to ourselves that there might be a voluntary departure plan, or a few layoffs, but not total closure! »

Beyond the financial aspect, their whole life will be turned upside down. “We've been working in opposing factions every other week for 15 years, we've organized our whole life around that,” they describe, complicitly. “The one in the afternoon does the cleaning in the morning, the one in the afternoon evening takes care of our son and prepares the evening meal We are used to it, I'm afraid it will upset our whole balance.

The only advantage “of being both in the same sinking boat is that we understand what the other feels.” With a more explosive temperament, Olivier Papot is angry. “They have no qualms about ruining 70 families to make even more money by relocating when we were profitable.” Psychologically, he admits to having gone through “complicated phases”. No longer introverted, Mirtha Fort no longer sleeps properly. “I have nightmares. And the questions arrive.”

Above all, they feel “great moral fatigue. We are reaching the end of what we can give,” they testify, visibly exhausted. “Still coming to work every day to make money for a group that has stuck a knife in your back, it’s hard on the head.” Now, they can't wait for it to end and to be able to look forward to the future again.

In personal assistance for her. “I’m going to go back to school, I hope I’ll be able to,” she worries. He did not choose his new path out of attraction. “I'm going to get my heavy goods vehicle licenses and retrain in transport. I don’t like it, but I only want one thing: to never experience that again.”

“Who is going to want to invest in a 58-year-old line driver? »

Stéphane Belbachir, 58 years old, three paper mills, three layoffs

Veuze, Alamigeon, and now the Saint-Michel paper mills. If he were not naturally optimistic, Stéphane Belbachir might think he was cursed. 2011, 2019, 2024. At 58 years old, he is on his third redundancy, his third stationery company liquidated. “I'm not even angry. I'm rather tired. But with 'experience', I must say that this time, I accepted it more easily. I just said to myself, I'm taking my pack and I'm going, like one would go to war.”

It was easier because he was prepared for it. Since the Saint-Michel stationery filed for bankruptcy in April, the 8 million debts announced, “I knew that the carrots were done. Even before, when there was a shortage of supplies because the suppliers had not been paid, I no longer had too many illusions. I know how to recognize the symptoms.”

During the last months, “I saw on the faces of my colleagues what I had experienced, it hurt my heart so much. » The first time, in 2011, when the Veuze paper mills where he had worked for 20 years closed suddenly, “it was devastating. It cost me a divorce, my house… I worried about my family, my children. Here I am single, my children are grown up, so I tell myself that even if I have to leave my house to get a small apartment, it will be less serious.”

The rest, of course, he thinks about it. “I'm not going to let myself slide quietly into retirement, I still have a lot to contribute and I still feel young. But I say to myself: who is going to want to invest in a 58-year-old line driver? » He has already been offered positions in Brive-la-Gaillarde, in Spain, in Sweden, but he will stay here, close to home, in Angoulême. “I can be a centerpiece, in a positive company, places will be expensive, but I will find this position, where I will not sell myself short at €11 an hour,” he says, determined to start again at fight.

“When the ax fell, it was a relief. »

Franck Petit, 54 years old, SNRI

“I spent 28 years at SNRI, and I had a blast,” says Franck Petit, 54, still with stars in his eyes. He is one of 44 SNRI employees who were not taken over after the liquidation and takeover by the SchuF group last October. “I was in purchasing, I managed all the tools in the foundry part. I traveled to China, Algeria, Korea… I loved my job.”

An experience and know-how which, all his colleagues thought, would protect him. “No, you definitely won’t be on the list,” they said. Ultimately yes. On October 11, he read it in black and white opposite his name: “not taken back”. Then he was “exempted from returning tomorrow”. “At the time, it hit me.” But with a few months of hindsight, he assures us: “ultimately, it was a relief. The hardest part was the front.”

The before is these few months, between the announcement of the recovery on July 4 and this famous October 11. “Where we were all asked to provide our CVs, in anticipation of a PES”. “Where we could no longer negotiate with subcontractors, help the procurement department as needed, because all decisions depended on the judicial administrator. I felt useless, helpless. » A frustrating feeling for him who has always been “passionate” about his job. “But until the end, I updated my databases so that, if I was on the list, I could move on as best as possible. Above all, I hoped that the box would survive.”

If he feels so “relieved” today, it is because, for 5 years, like most of his colleagues, “an anger, a resentment, against a management which did not respect the employees” had been growing within him. “managed from the top”.

Today, he wants to look to the future. “I tell myself that in my misfortune, I will have a little happiness. For a year, I will almost receive my salary while having the opportunity to sit down and see what I can do. So I'm positive. » His concern is above all to succeed in finding a position which corresponds to his skills. “I don't want to change region and I don't want to find myself on an assembly line, or locked in a laboratory, I would like to continue moving, why not travel,” he hopes, combatively.