Goodyear says it has started a consultation process with a view to closing its Amiens plant in northern France with the potential loss of nearly 1,200 jobs.
“Goodyear presented its plan today (31 January) to the Works Council to close [the] Amiens plant,” a Goodyear spokesman in the US told just-auto.
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“It remains subject [to] consultation with the employee representatives at both the local and European level.”
No estimate is yet available of the timing for closure, but the plans have provoked fury at the hardline French union, CGT, which noted the factory had been the subject of a “judicial battle for five years.”
A statement from the CGT’s National Federation of Chemical Industries, noted: “The question asked and goes beyond the scope of Goodyear, to join alongside Renault, Arkema, Peugeot, Sanofi, Rhodia, Michelin, is: ‘What is the government doing? What [is the] national industrial policy?
The news of yet more redundancies comes as France reels under a wave of automotive job cuts recently announced by PSA Peugeot Citroen and Renault, that could see nearly 16,000 staff cut.
“It has [had] numerous attempts during the past five years to [find] a solution at Amiens to safeguard its competitiveness and reduce high cost – this is the only option they had left,” said the Goodyear spokesman.
