“People like us count for nothing” | EUROtoday

Two thousand 300 and eighty-nine positions minimize at Auchan, 1,250 at Michelin, 868 at Valeo, 135 at Arcelor… For a number of weeks, social plans have been multiplying as a result of poor financial state of affairs and the key industrial disaster that we’re going via. Europe – with on the forefront the car sector, within the midst of a shift in the direction of electrical, whose financial mannequin is profoundly shaken by Chinese competitors. But these bulletins are solely the tip of the iceberg. Because, past giant teams, layoffs are growing quietly in small and medium-sized companies all through the nation: the variety of collective procedures is at its highest in fifteen years (65,000 anticipated on the finish of 2024) and that of bankruptcies has jumped 20% in a single yr (52,214) since January. Among the latter, no sector is spared: development corporations, commerce, the lodging and catering sector, and so forth.

More than 160,000 jobs at the moment are threatened, estimates the National Council of Judicial Administrators and Judicial Agents. Including direct, oblique and induced jobs, this determine might exceed 200,000, in accordance with CGT calculations. That is to say as many males, ladies and households who should take in the shock of the announcement, confronted with the dizzying query of what comes subsequent. And earlier than that, the urgent situation of payments to pay and the fridge to fill. “I almost lost my temper when I heard the news” ; “I feel like a part of myself is being ripped away from me », tell these employees on the floor. Some also report feeling anger, “and even hatred”towards their ex-employer. Their testimonies inform higher than the figures the financial disaster into which France is sinking.

“What scares me is the aftermath, the silence”

Morgane Royer, 31, works at workshop Z at Michelin, in Cholet (Maine-et-Loire). The French tire large introduced, on November 5, the closure, by the start of 2026 on the newest, of its websites in Cholet (955 staff) and Vannes in Morbihan (299 staff).

“They call us “miners””laughs Morgane Royer, taking her cellular phone out of her pocket. Prepared for the assembly, she exhibits a photograph of herself all smiles, however her face lined in carbon black, a vital ingredient for the event of tire rubber. The positive particles seep in all places, tattooing the pores and skin of those that deal with it. And the respiratory tract is just not spared. Workshop Z, the place she works, is the dirtiest space of ​​the manufacturing facility, an surroundings of males the place she arrived at simply 20 years outdated. “with hair down to my buttocks and varnish on my nails”.

You have 85.23% of this text left to learn. The relaxation is reserved for subscribers.