In a valley lashed by wind and rain in the industrial heartland of northeast France, steelworkers blockading the local foundry see their action as a last stand to save their jobs, their factory, their region's economy, even the entire French steel industry.
As thunderstorms raged in the area last week, the symbolism was potent: the picket line bonfire hissed and went out. The tent where protesters had taken refuge from the elements ditched its concrete anchors and threatened to blow away.
At the ArcelorMittal steelworks in Florange, the temporary closure of two blast furnaces was declared permanent, causing the loss of 629 jobs. Bitter jokes and anger are directed at the Indian born, British based Mr LN Mittal, owner of the world's largest steel making company.
Mr Edouard Martin head of the CFDT union at Florange said that "That man is a predator. I'm sick of hearing people say you are a historical industry but one from the past; you have to move on, do something else."
The ArcelorMittal plant at Florange has become the symbol of France's industrial decline and a litmus test for the future of steel making in Europe.
In the Vallée de la Fensch in the Moselle, whose rich iron ore fields once made it the jewel in France's industrial crown, Florange is the last steelworks standing. It is an industrial crisis that has echoes of the privatizations and plant closures that all but wiped out British steel making and coal mining in the 1980s and 1990s.
Unemployment in this area of France is already above the 10% national average and the Florange plant, which supplies the car industry, has been hit by a fall in demand for new cars. Peugeot Citroën caused outrage in July 2012 when it cut 8000 jobs and closed a production line in suburban Paris, but it followed a first half loss of EUR 700 million and a 20% fall in sales in Europe in the first quarter.
Mittal is not shutting the entire site but the so called hot line, the blast furnaces where the iron ore is melted to produce steel and the neighboring coke plant.
France's socialist president, Mr François Hollande and Mr Arnaud Montebourg, the minister for industrial renewal, have taken up arms on behalf of the steel workers and have pledged to find a buyer for Florange's furnaces. However, Mr Mittal, who blames falling global demand for steel and high production costs for the closure, has given them just two months to do so, at a time when Hollande is grappling to reduce the public deficit by EUR 30million and reverse rising unemployment that has topped three million.
Mr Cyril Colpin, a third generation steel worker who has been employed at Florange since 1999, said that "We're all afraid. Over the years all the plants have closed here. If this one goes, it won't be easy to find work."
Although agreed on the need to save Florange, the plant's main unions, the CFDT and Force Ouvrière, disagree over how.
Mr Walter Broccoli, the local Force Ouvrière secretary general, doesn't believe for one minute that the Hollande government will find a buyer and wants the plant nationalized. He said that "We want the government to declare steel a strategic asset for the country, like electricity and petrol, and requisition it. Oh and not give a penny to Mittal."
Source - Guardian News & Media
(www.steelguru.com)
