Michelin closes two factories: 1,254 jobs are threatened

Two flat factories and more than 1,200 employees on the job: Michelin announced on Tuesday the closure before 2026 of its Cholet and Vannes sites, calling into question the “collapse” of sales of tires for trucks and vans.

The management of the French tire manufacturer announced this closure on Tuesday morning to the 1,254 employees of these two factories in western France, who had feared it for several weeks.

Michelin is going through a difficult year with the slowdown in the new vehicle market and Asian competition.

“It is the collapse of activity that has caused this situation, and I want to tell all these employees that we will not leave anyone behind,” Michelin CEO Florent Menegaux said in an interview with AFP.

Michelin had already significantly reduced its footprint in France, its first country: with Poitiers, Toul, Joué-lès-Tours and La-Roche-sur-Yon, it will have closed six factories in twenty years.

The group had also announced a plan to cut 2,300 jobs in France in 2021: there will only be 18,000 employees after the closure of Cholet and Vannes, including 8,000 in industry.

The tire giant is not the only one coughing: the sharp slowdown in the automobile market is causing serious difficulties for European equipment manufacturers, large and small, and site closures are continuing, such as at the rim manufacturer Impériales Wheels and Dumarey Powerglide gearboxes.

“The circumstances of the European tire market – heavy goods vehicles on the one hand, and vans – mean that we do not see how we could reload these sites structurally in the medium and long term,” explained Mr. Menegaux on Tuesday.

The closure has become “inevitable” due to Asian competition in van and heavy goods vehicle tires, the sectors of the two factories.

The CEO of Michelin also blamed a “slow deterioration of competitiveness” in Europe which prevents exports from this continent. The group is also preparing the closure of two factories in Germany by 2025.

The large Cholet factory employs 955 employees, who mainly manufacture small tires for light trucks (17 inches and less). This market segment “has experienced a significant decline” in Europe in recent years, “with a drastic reduction in production volumes (…) with no prospect of recovery,” explains Michelin. This declining production will be taken over by the group’s sites in Italy, Spain and Poland.

The Vannes site has 299 employees who mainly produce metal cables for tires then manufactured in Spain and Italy in particular.

This factory has experienced a continuous decline in its production volumes “due in particular to the change in the level of demand from the group’s heavy-duty factories in Europe (…) with no prospect of recovery”, underlines Michelin.

The group undertakes to “support each of the employees concerned with tailor-made solutions”, with job offers in other companies or in the group, or even early retirement.

It “will also support the two impacted territories by participating in the creation of at least as many jobs as those eliminated,” he promised.

In La-Roche-sur-Yon, 635 jobs were created in four years for 613 jobs eliminated, according to Michelin. In Joué-Lès-Tours, 1,054 jobs were created in four years for 706 jobs eliminated.

The group’s union, worried about the future of several French sites, recently broke off discussions with management.

However, Michelin intends to propose to the unions a “Michelin Industry France 2030” plan, which should allow “French sites and their employees to better plan for the future”.

Employees at the Cholet factory voted for the strike late Tuesday morning. “It is a spontaneous movement of anger and revolt in the face of job cuts. We will then see what the general assemblies of struggling employees will decide on the actions to take,” Bastien You, CGT union delegate, told AFP.

The employees of the Cholet factory, around 200 of whom were preventing traffic at an intersection leading to the site, around a pile of tires, blocked the factory shortly after the announcements from management, which had planned in any case to stop production until November 13.

On site, the DVD mayor of Cholet, Gilles Bourdouleix, denounced “the rogue version of capitalism”. “There, obviously, the desire for years was to let the situation degenerate and then arrive at this brutal decision, and which is brutal on an economic level, but brutal, obviously, above all, on a human level,” he said. he lamented, recalling that Michelin has been in Cholet for “54 years”. “So it’s iconic. And for us, it’s heartbreaking,” he added.

The president (Horizons) of the Pays de la Loire region, Christelle Morançais, for her part indicated in a press release that she “shares” the emotion of Michelin employees in Cholet after this “extremely hard news for the employees and the region”.