Signatory of the agreement that was sealed in 2013, the closure of the Hauts Fourneaux d’Arcempittal in Florenge in Moselle, Jean-Marc Vecrin, today’s CFDT coordinator for the whole group, believes that the new social plan announced is “much more dangerous” than those who have overcome the life of the group.
During the last crisis, which marked the memoirs and the five-year period of François Hollande, this trade unionist who entered the group 30 years ago, ten years before the acquisition of Arcelling by the Indian Mittal group in 2006, remember that there was “a strategy”, which consisted of reflecting in the “coastal” sites of the group: Dunkirk in the north, and Fos-Sur.
When Florance closed, “there was zero dismissal”
Although France no longer had coal mines, the group chose in 2012 to maintain two stove sites by the sea to facilitate its supply of carbon or imported iron mineral, and export steel to the north to Germany and Belgium, towards the south to Spain, Italy and the Maghreb.
This allowed all employees to reclassify whose works have been eliminated in Florenge: even if the closure of the Mosellanes High Fovers was experienced as “a disaster”, “there was zero dismissal,” recalls the trade unionist.
Although Florenge’s plan was touched in 2012-13, “the 1,400 positions in the European-236 support functions in France to which 400 suppressions of production publications are added in France,” was a total surprise “.
“There is a goal, a great objective, of course, that is there, is the decarbonation (…), but the steps to get there, change all the time and we cannot have information,” says Jean-Marc Vecrin.
Investor “in the conditional”
After the suspension in November 2024 of the investment of 1.8 Miliards of euros planned to decarbonize the production of steel in Dunkerque, the statement of May 15 by the French management of the second global steel of their “intention” to invest 1.2 billion euros in an electric oven in Dunkirk “, does not restart” Jean-Marc Vecrin.
“It is in conditional,” he said, remembering that management expects, to make a firm and final decision, that the European Union implements announced measures to protect the European steel from Chinese steel competition at broken prices.
“Another concern”, while the group currently uses 15,000 people in its 40 production sites in France, electric ovens, “at the level of production, is less” than the high stoves: management mentioned two million tons per year of capacity for the oven of the project “, while a higher oven is three million,” says the vecrina of Jean-Marc, which fears a fall in the work needs.
He affirms a “conditionality” of the commitments on the use of state aid that will not fail, according to him, to claim Arceormittal for this investment. For the suspended decarbonation plan, just over 800 million euros in public aid had been promised.
“Silent deindustrialization”
In addition to the current construction of a steel factory for electric vehicle engines in Mardyck (North), he points out, as other staff representatives, “an obvious lack of investment” in the French production tool, accusing the group to carry out “silent deindustrialization.”
Arceormittal made, according to him, “investments in Brazil, India, the United States, Canada”, with in this case “great decarbonation structures.”
“Our fear is that without realizing, little by little, it is increasingly committed to Europe and that it disconnects from Europe,” he concluded.
Source: BFM TV
