• At the end of July, the Cergy-Pontoise administrative court validated the Employment Protection Plan (PSE) providing for the elimination of 98 jobs out of the 154 that comprise the Gardanne plant, in the Bouches-du-Rhône.

  • In order to replace the coal part of the plant, a biomass unit has been devised by GazelEnergie, in which some 300 million euros have been invested, according to the group, to generate 80 direct jobs.

  • On Tuesday, the strikers decided to invest the site day and night.

Employees who sleep day and night on the site.

A social crisis that lasts and gets bogged down to the point of ending this Friday before the court of Aix-en-Provence, seized by the management to expel the strikers.

In Gardanne, the closure of the coal-fired power station, decided by the government, and especially the discussions around the future of the site, are carried out in pain and in conflict between unions and management.

20 Minutes

takes stock of a case that has become explosive.

About a hundred jobs cut

The sentence fell in the dead of summer. At the end of July, the Cergy-Pontoise administrative court validated the Employment Protection Plan (PSE) providing for the elimination of 98 jobs out of the 154 that comprise the Gardanne plant, in the Bouches-du-Rhône. This social plan, a direct consequence of the shutdown of the coal part of the plant, in accordance with a will of the President of the Republic, was contested by the CGT, which had decided to take legal action in the hope of blocking this process.

But this lost legal battle for the union representatives signed the definitive abolition of these jobs planned by the management of the site, a subsidiary of the EPH group of Czech Daniel Kretinsky. A decision which, according to a spokesperson for GazelEnergie, the group that owns the plant, was "the only solution to be able to benefit from state aid". "When the government decides to close coal-fired power stations, the climate energy law which endorses it introduces a social support system for employees," says GazelEnergie. To benefit from this social support, a PES had to be implemented. "

"About a hundred people out of 160 are kidnapped from us," laments Nadir Hadjali, CGT manager on the site.

I'll let you count how many people are left.

We do not trust this direction.

When Daniel Kretinsky bought us, he just gradually dismembered the company.

The responsible in all this is also the State.

Ecological transition must not be synonymous with mass unemployment.

"

A biomass plant totally shut down for almost three years

In order to replace the coal part of the plant, a biomass unit has been devised by GazelEnergie, in which some 300 million euros have been invested, according to the group, to generate 80 direct jobs. With a power of 150 megawatts, this biomass power station should ultimately supply 6% of the electricity production of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, by consuming 850,000 tonnes of biomass, mostly wood.

But for the CGT, this project is insufficient to compensate for the loss of “700 indirect jobs” linked to the loss of the coal activity. As soon as Emmanuel Macron announced the elimination of coal-fired power stations in France in December 2018, employees went on strike, making it impossible for this power station to operate for nearly two and a half years. Last summer, the plant was able to briefly run for a month of testing, before employees block strategic positions, for an indefinite period.

On Tuesday, the strikers decided to invest the site day and night.

“It is not an occupation, defends Nadir Hadjali.

We have decided to put the site in protection, because management has removed too many posts for the site to function properly.

".

What strain a little more of the already stormy relations between the employees of the central and their management, which seized the justice this Friday and whose decision is unknown at the time of this writing.

Project versus project

At the heart of this latent conflict, two visions of the future of the site which seem irreconcilable. On the one hand, the CGT advocates its own industrial project, based on the production of methane and hydrogen. "This industrial project would make it possible to reinstate the dismissed employees and to establish the site in the long term", affirms Nadir Hadjali. And to ask: "The direction makes effects of announcement, of communication. But what is his project, concretely? "

An initiative supported locally by local elected officials like Jérémy Bacchi, secretary of the PCF federation of Bouches-du-Rhône. "We are once again witnessing the clash of two logics, accuses the PCF in a press release. On the one hand, employees who want to safeguard the work tool, develop industrial activity, employment and their know-how which contribute to the general interest, and on the other a liberal conception which only has 'a single objective: to increase more and more profit… ”

For its part, GazelEnergie claims to have "discussed" on the occasion of an extraordinary CSE the CGT project, which it does not however consider viable. “They have no clients, plague a spokesperson for the group. They have no business plan and no opportunities. The group is betting on a project to produce methanol and renewable kerosene from this biomass, called Hynovera. "We can have large customers, boats from the port of Toulon, planes from the airport," said this source. We have letters of commitment from local companies that would be ready to use, thanks to our technology, a decarbonization of their processes and their mobility. We have launched a study to the tune of 800,000 euros and we are optimistic that it will succeed. "

Both agree, however, on one point: in this case, Emmanuel Macron, at the origin of this situation, is expected at the turn.

“The State is absent today, deplores Nadir Hadjali.

It will cost them more to leave us like that than to intervene, in terms of employment and economic benefits… ”

“Our file is currently being examined by Bercy,” says a spokesperson for Gazel Energie.

We have been interacting with the government for several months, and we are in the finalization phase of our discussions.

This Tuesday, the President of the Republic presented the France 2030 investment plan, which notably plans to make the country the leader in green hydrogen.

Planet

France 2030: Are Emmanuel Macron's announcements going in the direction of ecological transition?

Economy

Bouches-du-Rhône: The Gardanne coal-fired power station occupied by employees after a violent intrusion

  • Marseilles

  • Planet

  • Energetic transition

  • Central

  • Coal