Orange with Media Services, published on Saturday 06 June 2020 at 5:37 p.m.
The procession included hundreds of employees, elected officials and residents.
Renault plans to close this Parisian suburban factory, as part of a 2 billion-euro savings plan over three years. The president of Renault, Jean-Dominique Senard, had announced that the Choisy-le-Roi (Val-de-Marne) plant would be the only one of the group’s 14 industrial sites in France to close by 2022.
Hard hit by the crisis, the manufacturer, which plans 15,000 job cuts including 4,600 in France, will benefit from a loan guaranteed by the state of 5 billion euros, validated last Tuesday by the government.
“We favor the shareholders”, estimated the general secretary of the CGT, Philippe Martinez, employee of Renault already come to show his support to the personnel of Choisy Wednesday.
“This money must be used to maintain employment and develop it,” he added. The activity of the Choisy factory, inaugurated in 1949 and which today employs some 260 employees in the renovation and reconditioning of engines and gearboxes, must be transferred to that of Flins (Yvelines), about 60 km .
“Nonsense”
“We will not move!” Chanted in the procession of employees inserted at Force Ouvrière, the factory’s first union. “We didn’t have the Covid, but we have the rage,” says Frédéric, who has worked at Choisy for more than 20 years. Having heard the news of the closure of his factory “on the radio, going to work”, he said he was “disappointed” but did not “give up”. “We don’t want to go to Flins, Renault Choisy is a small family, there’s a story,” he argues.
Speaking before the procession took off, the PCF mayor of Choisy, Didier Guillaume, castigated the “nonsense” which consists in closing a site “highly virtuous, which works on the circular economy” and welcomes “young people in integration”. “No to break the job engine”, “Choisy chooses Renault”, could be read on banners. And on the yellow vest of a protester: “Senard, creator of the unemployed”. –
