The last site of tobacco processing in France, located in Sarlat in the Dordogne, will close its doors in the fall, victim of the crisis affecting the sector, said Wednesday management and union. France Tabac, which still employs 33 employees, will stop its activity at the end of October, said Eric Tabanou, general manager of a site "suspended for almost ten years".
Established since 1985 in the French stronghold of Burley tobacco production, the plant dry and transforms tobacco leaves for the shisha market and high-end cigarettes. "This is a page in our agricultural history that is turning," lamented the mayor of Sarlat, Jean-Jacques Peretti, interviewed by the radio France blue Périgord, referring to a sector "completely in esch".
On the decline for several years
The plant, which has employed up to 250 people, has been on the decline for several years and has already experienced three social plans in ten years (2011, 2014 and 2016). At issue: global competition, the cessation of European subsidies and the decline in production that hit the entire industry for several years. "With these problems of competitiveness, the situation had become inextricable," assured François Vedel, spokesman for the national federation of tobacco producers.
According to François Vedel, the site was hoping for a "breath of fresh air" thanks to the signing last year of an agreement with the German group Alliance One International to process tobacco from abroad, an agreement that was not renewed, sealing the fate of the factory and its employees who will be fired.
"It's a huge mess"
"This is the chronicle of a death announced", deplored Laurence Thomas, FO delegate, France blue, worried about the conversion of employees to "very specific skills to the plant". According to Eric Tabanou, part of the French production that supplied the plant will be processed abroad, particularly in Croatia. "It's a huge mess," he lamented.
"This is a new blow for the tobacco industry," has also reacted with Laurent Testut, president of the cooperative Tobacco Tobacco that includes some 180 producers on 250 hectares of plantations. "We pay cash public health policies," he said. The last cigarette factory in France, the Seita, which was located in Riom (Puy-de-Dôme), disappeared in 2017.