A hundred Vallourec employees, worried about the future of the industrial group's French sites, gathered this Thursday morning in peace in the city center of Aulnoye-Aymeries (North), where Emmanuel Macron is expected at the start of 'afternoon.
The employees intended to express their concern after the announcement on Wednesday by the Vallourec group of the sale of its German activities and the end of the manufacture in Europe of tubes for the industry.
The rally, in which employees of the site near Saint-Saulve also participated, comes as Emmanuel Macron must begin by visiting a nursing home in this town.
On the sidelines of E.
Macron in Aulnoy Aymeries, the striking Vallourec employees are protesting after the closure of the group's German factories.
“Since 2014, we have been undergoing PSE on PSE, it's a disaster.
Vallourec is going to shreds today we say to ourselves it's the end ”pic.twitter.com/sd96acqbye
- Pierre Beauvillain (@beauvillainp) November 19, 2021
A delegation of employees must be received at the town hall by an adviser to the Head of State in the early afternoon, and a remote exchange is scheduled later with the Minister for Industry Agnès Pannier-Runacher.
The fear of a total cessation of activities
For employees, the announcement of Vallourec seems to them "sharp and very brutal", according to Christophe Couvreur, CGT coordinator, who fears "a total cessation of activities" in France.
Aulnoye-Aymeries
Inter
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union meeting Vallourec, railway workers, postmen, yellow vests before the arrival of the President of the Republic @EmmanuelMacron.
pic.twitter.com/IbZdLMNGex
- ⭐️⭐️ (@thibautpaquit) November 19, 2021
“Today, we say to ourselves that it is the end.
We swept the German factories with the back of the hand, and that scares the French factories, ”said Jonathan Caucheteux, FO union coordinator.
“Since 2014, we have undergone PSE on PSE,” he laments, while Vallourec is emerging from a very long financial restructuring process.
After the end of its activities in Germany, most of the group's manufacturing will now be carried out in the United States, Brazil and China.
In Europe, Vallourec must keep four factories in France and one in Scotland (around 2,000 employees in total).
