Question 14157 — industry

Summary

Mrs. Sabine Rubin draws the attention of the Minister of Labor to the closure of the Coromant factory, a subsidiary of the Swedish multinational Sandvik in Fondettes in Indre-et-Loire. The world number one in tungsten carbide tools, this site, which has been in operation for almost 70 years, has already seen its first unit close in 2015, putting 45 people out of work. In a few weeks, a second unit will close and 161 people will be laid off. This site saw its entire activity reorganized following the massive opening of Sandvik's capital to investors. Production activities and sales activities have been separated: production is French but sales are centralized in Holland, which allows the multinational to achieve tax optimization since the levies there are very advantageous for companies. Part of the production was relocated in India. Sandvik has favored its production subsidiaries in Germany where the metallurgy sector is growing because it is supported by a real industrial policy. Production on the Fondettes site was then reduced little by little, part of its specialized production was transferred to other European sites. The multinational is absolutely not losing money. In 2017, its turnover was 9 billion euros for a net profit of 1.3 billion euros and its shares are also doing well since their amount amounts to 27 euros. Sandvik was thus able to loudly proclaim that the site no longer has any strategic interest for it, after having organized its loss of interest in a methodical manner. Here is a concrete example of what the “Macron orders” allow, which give a company the possibility of dismissing employees with regard to economic situation of a production site but of its overall economic situation. This allows a multinational that makes money to artificially organize a loss of productivity on a site to justify its closure. The case of the Coromant factory in Fondettes is not an isolated case: Ascoval, Viskase and many industry flagships are threatened for similar reasons. She wishes to know if the Minister intends return to the provision of the “Macron orders” which allows multinationals to lay off workers while they are making money. More broadly, it wants to know the measures it intends to put in place to reindustrialize the French economy with a view to achieving the energy transition.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

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