Reading: 3 minutes
In 2018, the American group Honeywell shut down, without qualms, the factory for manufacturing respiratory protective masks in Plaintel (22) and destroyed the machines. A tool that we really need right now.
“When I see the number of phone calls from business leaders who, in recent days, ask me if I know where the machines at the Giffard factory are located, I can see the importance of the loss of this tool in the current context, ”says Joseph Le Vée, mayor of Plaintel, today.
“Outrageous”
Unfortunately, some of the simplest machines have taken the road to Tunisia and the automatic mask-making lines that are so lacking today have been destroyed. Honeywell, which bought the factory in 2010, sold them to a scrap dealer, after the cessation of activity and the dismissal of the quarantine of employees, in 2018. All the more “scandalous”, according to Jean-Jacques Fuan, ex-director of the site from 1991 to 2006, that they had been heavily subsidized by the state to produce tens of millions of masks, during the H1N1 epidemic in 2009. This had forced the company to recruit 100 additional employees, the workforce peaking at 250 people.
The adventure had started well
The highlight of a great adventure. That of the manufacturer of briochin hats, Louis Giffard. Faced with the decline of these headgear in the 60s and 70s, he converted to the manufacture of respiratory protection masks. An intuition inspired during a trip to the USA but also by a context where the business world begins to take into consideration health at work. The beginnings promise. The activity is sustained but the method remains handcrafted and the scrap material significant. The purchase by the Swedish Bilsom, in 1989, on the death of its creator resulted in the industrialization of the site. The takeover in 1993 by the Dalloz group, then Spirian, led to its decline. A “kill” that Honeywell completes after eight years of reduced activity. “And this, despite potential buyers,” says Jean-Jacques Fuan.
“Public utility company”
“When the Americans arrived, I wondered not if but when we were going to close,” said a former employee. “When they buy, it’s to make a profit, from 15 to 20%. In France, this is impossible. And all the less that it was Honeywell who bought our masks and set the prices, at the lowest! We were unemployed half the time. We have alerted politicians to defend a public utility enterprise. But the economy was king and we were only 38 employees. Where was the problem? ” Serge Quéau, of Solidaires 22, recalls that the CFDT and CGT sections of the factory had sounded the alarm at the time and “even addressed President Macron and the Minister of the Economy, but in vain. Today, the return to reality is brutal “.
Recreate the site urgently?
“We do not understand why the fifth world power is not able to produce enough masks,” adds Valérie Prunaud. The example of Giffard shows, according to the communist senator of Côtes-d’Armor, that it is vital not to allow the country’s industrial tool to be destroyed, especially when it concerns health. And to hope that after this crisis, “we will fundamentally review the dominant economic model”. In the short term, Serge Quéau suggests that we urgently recreate a mask production unit in Plaintel: “The competent personnel exist and we could use part of the 750 billion released by the European Central Bank”. Still need to find machines …
–
