Alstom will stop production trains in Belfort 2018 – Le Point

Weakened by lower orders in France, the rail manufacturer Alstom announced Wednesday the arrest of its production trains in Belfort by 2018, a new long dreaded and was greeted with dismay on site. The dreaded scenario finally happened: faced with a scheduled 30% drop in the workload of its French plants, Alstom has sacrificed one of its assembly plants, that of Belfort

. “the management of Alstom shared a project to refocus its activities exclusively on the service”, that is to say train maintenance, while “the engineering and production will gradually, over a two years, transferred to the Reichshoffen site “in the Lower Rhine, the group said. Faced with “the decline in orders and investment projects,” the rail manufacturer explains that he “had to adapt its industrial tool to not put all risky sites.”

“Dismayed”

“All employees will receive, if they wish, a transfer proposal” to other sites in France by 2018, ensures Alstom, which does evokes neither closure nor social plan for the plant in Belfort. “This announcement means to us closing nothing short of Belfort,” said Olivier Kohler, CFDT delegate of the site. According to him, out of 500 current employees, only 50 assigned to train maintenance will remain in place. Claude Mandart, central delegate CFE-CGC, said for his part that he “would not remain on Belfort a hundred people” within two years.

The deputy mayor (LR) Belfort , Damien Meslot, said he was “appalled by this decision which directly threatens around 400 jobs in Belfort in the next two years” and which is according to him “not consistent with Alstom commitments.” “Alstom given up on its historic property, which was manufactured the first drive train,” insisted Olivier Kohler.

Concerns for other plants

Established since 1879 in Belfort the company has produced its first steam locomotive in 1880, before also develop in turbines and energy, a business sold to the American General Electric end of 2015. a year earlier, in December 2014, already alerted unions on job cuts threatened in the transport branch in Belfort. However, the group’s backlog has not been filled, Alstom even seeing pass under his nose a recent contract of 44 diesel locomotives, purchased from German rival by Vossloh Akiem subsidiary of SNCF and Deutsche Bank .

the plant in Belfort had only a few locomotives to make the train and Azerbaijan until 2018, then for Switzerland until 2021. the Reichshoffen (1 000 employees to date), where regional trains are assembled, not much visibility. The order for 30 new Intercity trains promised in February by the Secretary of State for Transport, Alain Vidal, and has still not materialized. The Valenciennes plant (1 250 employees), where Alstom builds its subways and commuter trains, is meanwhile suspended the choice of SNCF and Transport Union of Ile-de-France (STIF) for their RER “new generation “, expected in the fall.