The more than 700 employees of Ascometal, placed in receivership, will soon be determined on their fate. Candidates for the takeover of the company must come forward on Thursday.
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More than 700 Ascometal employees are waiting for a buyer. For the third time in ten years, the steel group, specializing in steels for the automobile industry, is placed in receivership, a consequence of the failure of the takeover project by the Italian Venete, just a month ago .
After this dramatic turn of events, possible new candidates for the takeover must make themselves known on Thursday April 25. The parent company, Swiss Steel (based in Switzerland), evokes several signs of interest. Three sites are concerned: Custines, in Meurthe-et-Moselle, le Marais, in the Loire and Hagondange, in Moselle, where the Ascometal headquarters are also located.
Around forty employees have already left
On this site, no smoke escapes from the large buildings of Hagondange, deserted by employees at the start of the week due to a leak at the steelworks. “It complicates things a little. We didn’t need that”testifies Nicolas, one of the steelmakers. This somewhat worried employee hopes that the oven will restart quickly.
“We need to have as much cash as possible and deliver to our customers as quickly and as best as possible. With the receivership, it’s accumulating, we don’t need these delays.”
Nicolas, a steelworker from the Hagondange siteat franceinfo
At maximum capacity, the Hagondange site produces 300,000 tonnes of steel per year, but it is half as much today. An activity slowed down by the financial difficulties of the group which cooled the Italian Venete, but also around forty employees who chose to leave last year. Their names are written on a board in the CGT office. “Every time someone leaves, we mark their name, so we remember them. We have certain skills that we no longer have, that we have difficulty finding, especially in our area. I am thinking in particular of maintenance”regrets Yann Amadoro, union delegate.
Diversify the activity
However, there is an urgent need to save Ascométal because, beyond the 400 employees at Hagondange, many jobs depend indirectly on its activity. This is the concern of Stéphane, hired 13 years ago: “The businesses, the subcontractors, the suppliers, the temporary workers, it would be a disaster. The Lorraine basin is already very impacted by the closure of the blast furnaces and the entire mining industry which has closed. It has become ghost towns and this is what risks happening in Hagondange if such an industry closes.”
Employees, like the town hall, hope that Venete will come back with an offer. The Italian steelmaker has strong backs, Yann Amadoro wants to believe.
“The project that the Italians wanted to implement here included diversifying the markets a little, particularly with agricultural machinery. That interests us because we know that this is the problem with our factory.”
Yann Amodoro, CGT delegateat franceinfo
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“It’s a market that is a little at half mast, so we can make up for it in another.” Because in addition to being an essential player in European automobile production, Ascometal also supplies the arms industry. “We still see the ministry increasing its interventions to say that we must protect industry. Lately in Europe, there are still fears and everyone is looking at the industrial capacities that they may have in their country. It is better to keep steel factories in France”, believes Yann Amodoro.
The Hagondange site finally has the advantage of being electric and carbon-free. These assets even make certain unions think that Ascometal should, why not, be nationalized.