The tire group has announced the closure by 2026 of its factories in Cholet (Maine-et-Loire) and Vannes (Morbihan), where 1,254 employees work.
Published on 05/11/2024 11:25
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“It’s a terrible shock,” reacts, Tuesday, November 5, on franceinfo Laurent Bador, CFDT Michelin central union delegate. The tire group has announced the closure by 2026 of its factories in Cholet (Maine-et-Loire) and Vannes (Morbihan), where 1,254 employees work. The trade unionist “think of the families who are in total disarray” because it is “very very hard”.
This decision became “inevitable” due to Asian competition on van and heavy goods vehicle tires, the sectors of the two factories, but also of the “deterioration of Europe's competitiveness”, Michelin management said in a press release.
Laurent Bador is not surprised by this decision. “We felt that things were not going well. We have already been alerting the company for months, even years, about the industrial decline of the sites in France and in particular those of Cholet and Vannes”. He emphasizes that the CFDT “made suggestions” to relaunch the Cholet site. “For us, it was to keep an industrial footprint in Cholet. It was necessary, it was essential. We probably had to make adjustments. But here, the decision to close, we never thought that it could be taken so quickly by the company.”
