These announcements are obviously of great concern
reacted Tuesday the Minister of the Economy Antoine Armand.
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On the one hand, there is Michelin, with the announcement of the planned closure before 2026 of two industrial sites in the west of the country, in Cholet (Maine-et-Loire) and Vannes (Brittany), which concerns 1 254 employees.
On the other hand, the distributor Auchan, after several difficult years, plans to cut 2,389 jobs in France out of 53,000 in the country, notably through the closure of around ten stores.
It's catastrophic. This will leave many, many employees and families in difficulty. It's shocking, scandalous
was indignant Franck Martineau, FO Auchan Retail union representative.
Management hopes to limit the number of redundancies through support for the employees concerned, retraining training, reclassification leave and voluntary departure plan.
Long considered one of the best-performing players in social terms within mass distribution, Auchan has had a series of bad economic years and its holding company Elo Groupe announced in July a net loss of almost a billion euros on the first six months of 2024.
Automotive crisis
At Michelin, Cholet employees voted to strike and blocked the site shortly after management's announcements.
In Vannes (Morbihan), the announcement was greeted with great silence. Everyone blames it
testified Eric Boisgard, employee since 2004 and former CGT union delegate.
For the group's first union, the CFE-CGC, these closures are a unilateral, brutal and poorly anticipated decision
condemned its central union delegate José Tarantini.
The CEO of the equipment manufacturer, Florent Menegaux, justified the closures by the collapse of activity
and promised that we will not leave anyone behind
.
It comes against a gloomy context for the entire European automotive sector, which is suffering from a sluggish market and strong competition from Asian brands.
The CEO of Michelin also questioned slow deterioration of competitiveness
of Europe, particularly linked to energy costs, which prevents exports.
The group is also preparing the closure of two factories in Germany by 2025.
The automobile industry, the backbone of the economy across the Rhine, is going through a severe crisis there.
The equipment manufacturer Schaeffler announced the elimination of 4,700 jobs in Europe and the closure of two sites, citing the difficult market environment
and the growing global competition
.
The workforce reductions will mainly affect ten sites in Germany and five others in Europe, between 2025 and 2027.
After the social plans of the largest equipment manufacturers Bosch, ZF and Continental, the Volkswagen group, number 1 in Europe among automobile manufacturers, created a shock by announcing in early September plans for massive job cuts in Germany and threatening to close factories.
