Emmanuel Macron “partially repaired his fault”, according to the CFE-CGC national coordinator at GE France

Despite this takeover of General Electric’s nuclear activities this Friday, Philippe Petitcolin regrets a “feeling of waste, the impression of having lost ten years”.

Emmanuel Macronpartially repaired his fault“, reacts Friday May 31 on franceinfo Philippe Petitcolin, CFE-CGC national coordinator at General Electric France, after the announcement by the President of the Republic of the takeover of GE’s nuclear activities by EDF. “It’s a commitment I made in Belfort“, welcomes this Friday on X the head of state, praising “a big step for our energy sovereignty. French pride“.

In an interview with the regional dailies of the Ebra group published Thursday evening, Emmanuel Macron announced that EDF would, as of this Friday, resume “officially the nuclear activities of General Electric (GE) and in particular the maintenance and manufacturing activities of Arabelle turbines“, noting the finalization of a buyout announced in February 2022 and of which he did not reveal the amount.

The Arabelle turbines at the heart of the nuclear power plants, manufactured in Belfort, are returning to the French flag. Because ten years ago, the Belfort factory belonged to Alstom. In 2014, Emmanuel Macron, then Minister of the Economy, validated the sale of Alstom’s energy branch to the American General Electric. The operation was finalized in 2015 after a long political-economic controversy.

“There is a feeling of waste, the impression of having lost ten years“, regrets Philippe Petitcolin at the microphone of franceinfo. From now on, Philippe Petitcolin “hopes that through the takeover by EDF, we can finally have an industrial investment dynamic, the opposite of what happened with General Electric for ten years“. He “hopes that this is the start of the reconstruction of industrial capacities in Belfort“. Emmanuel Macron “partially repaired his fault“, he slipped.

But for that, there is “two conditions“, according to him. The first, that the Belfort factory can continue”to trade“with the Russian company Rosatom,”the main customer of the Belfort entity“, he emphasizes. The second is “that EDF has a reconstruction project, to develop employment, to develop the industrial capital of ports which were destroyed for ten years by the American General Electric“.

Philippe Petitcolin notes “that we only save a quarter of the workforce in France, we only save nuclear power” since “renewable activities such as wind turbines, networks, hydroelectric dams or gas turbine activities continue to be dismantled with repatriation to the United States“. So, he continues, “if there is no intervention on the rest of the perimeter, tomorrow the French energy transition will be carried out with Asian or American players“.