4 minute read
Focus on France Ian Sparks reports from Paris
EURO-REPORT
FOCUS ON... France
Ian Sparks reports from Paris on continuing hostility to foreign takeovers.
Furious French tyre factory workers have warned an American tycoon who wants to buy the Goodyear plant – and sack almost three quarters of the workforce – that they will ‘reduce it to ashes’ if the takeover goes ahead.
A union spokesman for the Goodyear employees branded Maurice Taylor, the chairman of US tyre giant Titan International, a ‘mental defective’ for his offer to buy the loss-making factory near Amiens, northern France, then axe 865 of the 1200 jobs.
The union has also rejected an earlier plan by Goodyear to accept a four-shifts-aweek system and a pay freeze to keep the plant open.
Now they are refusing a proposed purchase of the plant which manufactures tyres for tractors and other farm vehicles from Mr Taylor, who is proposing to invest tens of millions of euros to guarantee employment for four years for the remaining 335 staff he has promised to keep.
The workers’ venom towards the Titan International boss dates back to February this year when Mr Taylor first visited the factory after Goodyear announced it would be closing its main French plant and cutting its workforce in France by 39 per cent amid labour disputes and plunging car demand in Europe.
After the visit, the disillusioned Titan boss wrote a scathing open letter to France’s industry minister Arnaud Montebourg telling him the Goodyear workers were “lazy, overpaid and talk too much.”
In the letter, which he also sent out to the nation’s newspapers, Mr Taylor told Mr Montebourg: “I have visited the factory several times. The French workforce gets paid high wages but works only three hours.
“They get one hour for breaks and lunch, talk for three hours and work for three. I told the French union workers this to their faces. They told me that’s the French way!
“Titan is the one with the money and the talent to produce tyres. What does the crazy union have? It has the French government.”
Mr Montebourg hit back with his own letter, telling Mr Taylor his comments were ‘extremist and insulting’ and that he knew nothing about France.
Now as Goodyear threatens complete closure of the factory, the minister has eaten his words and has urged the company to accept Mr Taylor’s new offer.
But the workers are now as equally opposed to a takeover by Titan International as they are to complete closure of the factory by Goodyear.
Union spokesman Mickael Wamen said he believed Mr Taylor’s offer was a ‘bluff’ to acquire the factory at a knock-down price then lay off all 1200 employees. He told the French media in November: “We are not falling for that trick. He is taking us all for idiots. It is out of the question that we would accept that our government helps this American mental defective to close down our factory. It is a scandal, and we guarantee that if Mr Taylor buys this factory, it will be in ashes.”
Peugeot plan
Meanwhile, Mr Montebourg is also trying to play down the prospect of more foreign takeovers in France after the media claimed that loss-making car giant PSA Peugeot Citroen was in talks with China’s Dongfeng and the French government over a capital increase.
Under the proposed deal, the stateowned Dongfeng Motor Company and the French government would each contribute 1.5 billion euros and acquire 20 to 30 per cent of the car-maker, sources close to the matter have said.
The plan would mean the Peugeot family would lose control of the company because the cash injection would dilute its 25.4 per cent stake and 38.1 per cent in voting rights.
But Mr Montebourg insisted in an interview with French daily Le Parisien that PSA ‘would remain a French company’.
Asked if that meant there would be no Chinese investment in Peugeot’s capital, Montebourg said: “I didn’t say that. What I’m saying is that the company will stay in France and will remain French.”
Peugeot has confirmed it is studying new industrial and commercial projects with different partners but has not given any details and has not confirmed talks over the three billion euro capital increase plan.
Paris-based Peugeot, which is slashing jobs and plant capacity, entered an alliance with General Motors last year and sold a stake to the US car-maker in a one billion euro capital increase.
GM scaled back cooperation with Peugeot months into their alliance and later turned down a government-backed merger, industry sources said.
The Peugeot family has hinted that it is ready to give up control at the company in order to save up to 8000 jobs and close down its oldest plant to the north of Paris.
France’s financial daily newspaper Les Echos said: “The workers may not like it, but for Goodyear, Peugeot, and many others in France, it’s foreign or bust.” n
