“STX” to the Italians, Alstom germany, pass to foreign hands !” They come from Bernard Accoyer; secretary general of the “Republicans” or other, to take control of the flagship French industrial group, producer of the famous TGV, the German group raises in France criticisms and fears for the job. Fears unfounded or even displaced for some, has been estimated Thursday on Radio Classique the boss of Alstom, Henri Poupart-Lafarge.
“The operation makes a lot of sense. Start hitting him over only because the shareholder [Siemens] is German, yes, I find that it is a patriotism quite misplaced”, he stressed, recalling that the centre’s decision to remain in France.
The French Alstom and German Siemens announced on Tuesday that a merger “among equals”of their rail operations – in fact this translates to a takeover of Alstom – to face a strong competition in china. “We are absolutely confident that this new group more solid will ultimately job creation,” added the boss of Alstom, who will head the new group railway after the merger with Siemens, putting forward a mobility market “strong growth”.
Guarantees on employment
The new group is committed to the maintenance of the employment and industrial sites for a period of four years. The French State has ensured they have obtained a “solid guarantees”, according to the French minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire : job retention and industrial sites for a period of four years, the listing of the group in Paris, maintaining the headquarters in France and its management by a CEO is French.
But it is the medium-term path that is of concern to the trade unions. Noting that this merger gave rise to both “hopes” and “concerns”. Laurent Berger, number one of the CFDT, said on Wednesday on franceinfo that the State should “obtain guarantees very accurate” on the job. The State must ensure that there “has not an absorption of the competence and production in Germany”, in “requiring of Siemens things on paper extremely clear,” he said.
Media functions – the business activities outside of production such as human resources, legal, marketing, finance, communication – will suffer “optimizations”, as stated Henri Poupart-Lafarge on Wednesday on BFM TV. “It is true that the structure of the group, there will be only one financial director, one director of human resources,” he said without further clarification. “But for that which is of the productive structure”, and engineering, he continued, the alliance “will strengthen the two groups.”
First shareholder with a little more than 50% of the capital, Siemens will then be able to climb beyond 50.5% at the end of four years. When asked about the potential risk that the German group is disinterested a day of the rail sector and give Alstom term, Henri Poupart-Lafarge said : “We’ll see what the future holds for us but today we have a strong shareholder, which gives us great visibility.”
