ArcelorMittal has "no visibility" beyond June 30 for its steel factory in Fos-sur-Mer, near Marseille, where one of the blast furnaces has already been shut down due to the health crisis , said Tuesday its director of human resources, Richard Pagnon.
The Fos site is running at 50% at the moment, one out of two blast furnaces has been shutdown since March 23. "We currently have no visibility after June 30," said Richard Pagnon at a press conference of the UIMM (Union of Metallurgical Industries and Trades) Alpes-Méditerranée and union organizations in the sector.
Economic recovery worried
"We are deploying a lot of commercial efforts", assured Richard Pagnon, "but our market is the Mediterranean automobile industry (Spanish and Italian in particular) which has been hit hard by the health crisis".
David Thourey, FO delegate from ArcelorMittal Mediterranean, also expressed concerns at the same press conference during the same press conference. "The economy should not suddenly start up again, because with a single blast furnace we would not follow," he explained. "We will undoubtedly have to continue with partial unemployment, which means a loss of income for many employees," he lamented.
Marseille
Coronavirus in Fos-sur-Mer: The imminent closure of ArcelorMittal blast furnaces raises fears of a scenario at Florange
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