Monaco (AFP)
Not far from the casinos and luxury shops, Monaco still shelters, behind the facade of wise buildings with the windows of offices, a handful of factories where workers made the 3x8, survivors of an unknown industrial saga whose days now seem counted .
Emblematic of this sector born from the 1950s, under the impetus of Prince Rainier III and thanks to the influx of entrepreneurs attracted by the mild climate and taxation, plasturgist Foreplast has announced the end of any production of here in February.
This manufacturer of automotive components (door handles, buttons, etc.) was founded in 1955 by a Monegasque pure juice, Charles Manni, grandfather of the young F1 hope Charles Leclerc.
Five years ago he was sold to the Novares group. But the latter will keep in Monaco only design offices and a billing service.
With this factory, it is a piece of Monaco history that disappears and "a real trauma," says Lena Hanns, of the Union Syndicale Monegasque (USM).
- Very rare strike -
"The trend is to go towards the development of design offices, a clean industry, services, rather than manufacturing that requires a lot of space," she says.
In Monaco, hyper-urbanized city-state of about 2 square kilometers on the Mediterranean, the average price of m2 approaches 50,000 euros, one of the most expensive in the world.
"It would be less of a problem if employees were considered and trained to continue working in Monaco, but today they are simply sent back to France or Italy," she says.
At Foreplast, where 59 employees will be fired despite years of seniority and a smooth career, the social plan pill has been difficult to swallow. Very rare in the Principality, they went on strike twice, nearly fifteen days in all, to improve the social plan, says Me Delphine Frahi who assists the staff.
"I had the ball in my stomach, there are not many factories and they already have their staff," says Michele (his name has been changed at his request), a future 58-year-old Italian employee , entered the company in 1979.
His father was already working for the plasturgist: "Monaco was paying better than in Italy and until 2004 we were not taxable.In fact, especially, there was not too much work in Italy, it was our board of salvation ".
"For the Principality, the presence of modest people coming to work conveyed a different image than the clientele leading the palaces and Rainier III was very sensitive," says an industrialist.
In recent years, Michele felt the wind turn. In Fontvieille, a district won by the sea near the football stadium where these factories were concentrated, "there are still so many people, but they are more qualified people".
However, "in heroic times", as Pascal Gaussin calls it, of the Group of Studies of the processing industries (GIET) of Monaco, the Principality made everything: canned anchovies, washing machines, bathing suits or products of drugstore.
Among them, the famous "toothpaste feet" laboratories Asepta. Known under the Akiléïne brand, the latter was originally designed to relieve the proven feet of casino croupiers.
In 1965, almost half of the Monegasque workforce worked in the industry. The sector had increased tenfold in 15 years and was cited as an example: Monaco was the great industrial city of the Côte d'Azur and showed the way to overcome the mono-industry of tourism and games.
According to a connoisseur, accounting packages supported this success, allowing the imputation of production in a company doing virtually no profit and sales in another company in its own name tax-free. This system explains, according to this specialist, why still today companies keep a foothold in Monaco.
- Relocations -
The Monegasque industry has followed the same slope as in France or in Europe, but worse.
It now weighs only 5% of gross domestic product (GDP) and 5% of private employment, or 2,600 employees, according to the Imsee Monegasque statistical institute. And again, these numbers include industrial bakers or the fields of water, gas, electricity and waste treatment.
The industrial establishments of more than 100 people are only seven in Monaco. However, the industry accounts for a third of the Principality's foreign trade thanks to perfumes and toiletries, says Imsee.
Lancaster, whose Princess Grace Kelly has contributed to the fame, retains production lines of skincare and sunscreen. An old anchorage that the union USM considers in turn threatened after the disappearance in the last decade of several other major employers: Biotherm (cosmetics), Theramex (contraceptives), Borgwarner (hydraulic equipment) or Invensys (appliances).
"Employees are entitled to worry," says Hanns, although the American group Coty, owner of Lancaster, ensures that "the Coty site of Monaco and its competitiveness are strategic".
"Within GIET, we have been up to 65 members but we are only a fortnight, about half of them are real industrialists," says Gaussin, witness of many relocations to the Maghreb or the Caribbean. Eastern Europe.
"There is no point in being in Monaco, except for historically present companies that have a high added value production and for which the impact of the cost of labor is modest".
"When Prince Albert II was inducted in 2005, the decline was already underway," says Gaussin: "We had made a presentation entitled ... + To our dear missing".
© 2019 AFP