The State has granted a loan of 85 million euros to the Goodyear company based in Amiens (Hauts-de-France), after a grant of 44.6 million euros last March, to help modernize the venue, according to a decree published this Saturday in the Official Gazette.
The beginning of this loan was registered when the government of Jean Castex announced a subsidy in March as part of the France Relance plan, aimed at reindustrializing the territory and promoting innovation.
L’usine d’Amiens-Sud, qui emploie 800 salariés, était menacée de fermeture d’ici “cinq ans”, selon le président d’Amiens Métropole, Alain Gest (LR), notamment en raison de la concurrence venue d’Europe from the east.
Investment commitment of 100 million euros
In exchange, Goodyear, whose headquarters are located in Akron, United States, had committed to invest 100 million euros so that the plant could produce tires with higher added value.
The 85 million euro loan complements these investments and will be disbursed by the State through the Natixis bank.
In January 2014, another Goodyear site in the city, the Amiens-Nord plant, which specializes in manufacturing agricultural tires, closed its doors after a more than six-year standoff between staff and management, resulting in which resulted in the dismissal of 1,143 people.
The American group had been sentenced in May 2020 for unfair dismissal by the labor court, which had considered that the economic difficulties of the French subsidiary alone were not enough to justify the economic reason.
Goodyear had to pay compensation at least equal to the last six months of gross wages to the nearly 800 employees who had attacked it.
Goodyear manufactures tires at 57 factories in 23 countries and employs more than 72,000 people.
Source: BFM TV
