Paris (AFP)

The automotive group PSA backed down on Saturday under pressure from the government over its decision to bring some of its Polish workers to France to reinforce the teams at its factory in Hordain, in the North.

"Given the emotion that this subject arouses", what "we understand in the current context of the country", "we worked on an alternative solution", allowing "to assemble this additional team" finally constituted "mainly" temporary workers, "PSA Hordain communications manager Jean-Pierre Papin told AFP.

This team, which will be composed of some 530 people, will however include "some colleagues" from European PSA factories "who continue to suffer the effects of this crisis and for whom it is a united solution in order to allow them to have an activity, "he added.

This speech came long hours after the announcement by Bercy of an outright renunciation of this project by the boss of the group, Carlos Tavares, after an interview with the Minister of Economy Bruno Le Maire , which the ministry informed AFP.

"The minister had Carlos Tavares this morning, the two men get on well, it was a constructive discussion and Mr. Tavares has committed to reverse this decision," said Bercy.

The government had stepped up to the plate on Friday evening to clear up this sensitive subject, the day after the announcement by INSEE of the destruction of nearly half a million jobs in the private sector, a social drama caused by a collapse 40% of the temporary worker under the effect of the containment measures taken to combat the Covid-19 epidemic.

The Ministers of Labor and the Economy, Muriel Pénicaud and Bruno Le Maire, then asked PSA "to hire temporary workers as a priority" and to "renounce" this project announced the day before by management after 'a CSE.

The management had informed union representatives that a "first contingent" of 120 Poles from the Gliwice factory - producing Opel Astra - would arrive, then that 150 others would join them the following week, all for a three-month mission , accommodated by the company in the region and paid according to the French collective agreement for the sector.

- "Stay hyper vigilant" -

"In the current situation, companies must do everything to protect employment in France," said the government.

An extraordinary CSE must ratify this new option on Monday morning in the North, said Franck Théry secretary general of the CGT PSA d'Hordain.

"It is a victory but it must call others. We will remain hyper vigilant. The arrival of the Polish workers at PSA Hordain is canceled, (...) but we will continue to fight for this to be the case also elsewhere ", in Moselle for example, declared to AFP Fabien Roussel, national secretary of the PCF and deputy of the North.

In the Moselle plant in Trémery, which employs "fifteen" employees from the Mulhouse site as reinforcements, "it was announced that we were considering bringing in employees from other PSA sites in France and abroad" on the volunteer base, especially German workers, told AFP a spokesperson for the PSA factory in Tremery and the neighboring site in Metz, which employs 50 Polish workers from the Gliwice factory.

PSA had justified its decision to appeal to its Polish employees by explaining that the "brutal economic crisis" generated by the epidemic of Covid-19 required "to react with agility and efficiency, in order to ensure the sustainability of the PSA group".

"We are at the stage of looking for solutions to find people to join our teams which are not complete, without using temporary workers" since there are still partial unemployment measures in the group, depending on the functions and the sites, said the spokeswoman for Metz.

ngu-maj-frd-zl / ak / swi

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