A shock, certainly.
A surprise, not totally.
The Bridgestone plant in Béthune had been listed for at least two years by the services of the Ministry of the Economy among the French industrial sites likely to encounter difficulties.
At the end of November 2019 in Bercy, in front of Bruno Le Maire, Agnès Pannier-Runacher and Xavier Bertrand, the European management of Bridgestone had affirmed not to have the project to close its site.
Last Monday, by telephone meeting, the same interlocutors learned the bad news.
The president of the Hauts-de-France region accuses Bridgestone of
"lies and cynicism"
and denounces a plan which makes the Béthune plant alone bear the brunt of the restructuring of the Japanese group's European system.
Read also:
Closure of the Bridgestone factory: unanimous indignation of the executive and politicians
Several reasons explain this situation: the poor positioning of the product range, the absence of recent investments and a poor social climate, crystallized in May 2019 by the rejection by referendum of a performance agreement.
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