“Thanks to the mobilization of the State and the commitment of all, Alstom’s site in Belfort is saved!”, was very excited, Manuel Valls on his Twitter account as soon as the announcements of Christophe Sirugue, the Secretary of State for Industry this morning. Certainly, the employment of 480 employees in the production of locomotives has the merit to be preserved. For the time being. The factory will be able to continue its activity beyond 2018, the initial date on which the direction of Alstom wished to transfer the production and design offices to the factory, alsace, Reichshoffen. But at what price? The candidate for the primary of the left, Benoît Hamon, spoke on “France Inter” a “diy industrial”. “We don’t want to live in the square brackets of the State, said a union leader with Belfort before the announcements, hoping that the government would rather focus on the industrialization of the sites”.
however, the solution chosen to purchase 15 high-speed TGV new generation to make them run on the lines of the City is surprising. the “It is expensive to rescue! rants and raves elsewhere, Gilles Savary, socialist deputy of Gironde, transportation specialist. We will ride at 200km/h trains can go at 320 km/h while it was possible to find the materials more suitable and less expensive from a tender”. A choice in excelsis, according to industry experts, in relation to an activity loss of 400 million euros, which has seen its traffic decline of 21% since 2011! Ultimately, these TGV intended first of all to roll on the cross-sectional Bordeaux-Marseille, are expected to join the fleet of high-speed SNCF to supply the future high-speed railway to Toulouse, for which the horizon remains uncertain. “It has neither head nor tail, also considers a senior executive in the rail: it enlarges the park TGV SNCF depreciates year after year in its accounts, because their profitability decreases, and it increases the debt of the sector in which the government has just refused to take a portion of his account (€10 billion of the total $ 44 billion), in spite of the promises made to the boss of the SNCF in June of last year.
Pepy is doing to good account
Remained very discrete in this case, Guillaume Pepy is doing elsewhere to good account in this case since it is the State as the organising authority of these lines of equilibrium of the territory, who bought for nearly € 500 million, the oars, the euroduplex. “The operation is neutral for us,” observed one of elsewhere cautiously within the company, even if the latter is committed to order with Alstom for 20 diesel locomotives to tow the trains down, and the order of 6 TGV linking Paris-Turin-Milan that it saw 20 million euros too high. It is necessary to believe that Henri-Poupart Lafarge has agreed to make a gesture…
The CEO of Alstom was also forced to also make some concessions in its standoff with the government pledging to invest 40 million euros in three stages by 2020. Investments mainly dedicated to the development and production of a new model of locomotive to hybrid or diesel and the modernisation of the workshops of railway maintenance of the site of Belfort. Finally, Alstom will invest € 5 million extra by 2020 to diversify the production of the factory in Belfort, and referrals to other types of trains but also road vehicles, including electric bus.
These investments will be added to the project “TGV of the future”, that Alstom and the SNCF should develop by the end of 2017, in view of possible commands that would in part to the plant of Belfort from 2021.
“first and foremost a political decision,”
In total, more than 700 million euros of public order which will be paid out. “It is above all a political decision, pointing to a close to the folder considering that all this will not solve the structural problem of the decline of the cargo in France, nor the issue of the lack of competitiveness of Alstom in the French market”.
Still need to know how will evolve the negotiations after the presidential election of 2017. And that will settle the final bill: the State can divest itself from regions. Moreover, Brussels may also be required to put his nose in this deal otc. Even if it is normally of contracts-existing frameworks in which the State enables an option to purchase. Finally, the other French sites of Alstom are also experiencing decreases in load, prevent the trade unions. If Belfort and La Rochelle are out of the rut, the fragility of the assembly plants of Valenciennes (RER, metro) and Reichshoffen (City) continues to consolidate. Really saved Alstom?
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