Sunday, October 2, 2016

Alstom: a working meeting Tuesday in Belfort, but no miracle solution expected – The Point

The search for a solution for the factory Belfort needs to continue on Tuesday during an on-site meeting between unions, management and government, but its future remains uncertain, nearly a month after the announcement of the transfer in Alsace for the production of locomotives.

“I’m not going to go to Belfort saying +That+ solution”, has already warned the secretary of State for Industry, Christophe Sirugue, who must participate in this “working meeting”, along with local elected officials, the boss of Alstom Henri Poupart-Lafarge, and the trade union organizations.

Mr. Sirurgue has, however, indicated that”there will(it) necessarily elements of a response” to the situation of the site, franc-comtois, of which 400 of the 480 jobs are threatened.

“We did not wish to go simply with questions of order books,” but “to formulate proposals that are constructed, and this justified that we take a little time”, explained the secretary of State Friday, as the government was given on September 13, ten days to provide answers in this folder.

The management of Alstom had announced a few days earlier his intention to transfer, by 2018 the production of locomotives in Belfort, the group’s historic site which saw the birth of the first high-speed train to Reichshoffen (Bas-Rhin). In this scenario, only the activities of maintenance would be maintained in Belfort.

This announcement has sparked a pandemonium national policy and a strong local mobilization, in this town of 50,000 inhabitants, where Alstom has been installed since 1879.

So that the record of Alstom Belfort threatens to become, like that of ArcelorMittal in Florange, an emblem of the impotence of the State in the face of deindustrialization, François Hollande, himself, has set as its objective” the maintenance of the production of locomotives by Alstom in Belfort and asked the government to “mobilise to ensure that there are no more commands”.

- Diversification -

The rescue of the site will not be learned on Tuesday, because, beyond the backlog, “it is also a matter of organisation of the sector”, explained the secretary of State on Friday.

If the mayor (LR) of Belfort (Damien Meslot is looking forward to his coming, he said to wait for more than a simple business meeting: “we expect to have announcements of orders from the public sector and a diversification of the site”, he explained to AFP.

“We’re ready to mobilize and invest with Alstom and the government via Tandem, the economy company mixes heritage, which administers the assistance to the enterprises in the Territory-of-Belfort”, said Mr. Meslot.

In anticipation of potential announcements, Alstom has cancelled the board meeting of its european group committee scheduled for Tuesday, at the request of the unions, tormented by two other central committees of the company have made no progress.

Accused of “blackmail” to employment, the group’s CEO, Henri Poupart-Lafarge, stressed last week during a hearing in front of mps that he did not see, until recently, “no structural” for the site of Belfort, in a context of reduced activity of the rail freight and of the “historically low level” of the controls of the TGV in france.

Although the group can boast of many successes in the export area, they are of no help for the factory belfortaine: in the United States (28 TGV) as well as in India (800 engines) and south Africa (580 trains), local manufacturing was a condition-key to win the markets.

Only twenty locomotives and motor’s high-speed will this year plant the franche-comte region, compared to 140 in 2008.

behind the scenes, the government is active yet all the levers at its disposal. After its passage in front of the deputies, Mr. Poupart-Lafarge has been received at the Elysée in the company of Martin Bouygues.

the boss of The group BTP has 20% of the capital of Alstom, which he has lent the rights to vote in the State until October 2017, in the hope to sell him their shares at a good price.

other pressures are exerted on the SNCF, when asked to order the six-speed TGV to the Paris-Turin-Milan to ensure a few months of work at the factory of Belfort.

“It is essential to maintain the skills and the know-how of our railway industry, in order to be able to benefit from the recovery of orders when they will come,” said the Prime minister Manuel Valls.

02/10/2016 10:35:32 – Besançon, france (AFP) – © 2016 AFP

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