Maubeuge (AFP)

"Here, it is not a heart that I have, it is a rhombus ...", cowardly, moved, Jean-Marc Pelleriaux, hand on the chest. Evoking a "visceral" attachment to the MCA factory and a "family spirit", thousands of people demonstrated Saturday in Maubeuge (North) against the Renault savings plan.

"We were told that we were the best factory in Europe, that we had nothing to fear, and today we are told that we are going to close to put everything in Douai? We can't leave that leave ... ", indignantly told AFP Mr. Pelleriaux, 61, trainer in the retouching area and member of the CGT.

The site, which employs around 2,100 people of all statuses, has been shutdown since Friday morning, while the manufacturer's management, in difficulty, plans to transfer production of the Kangoo electric utilities to Douai - around 2,900 employees -, at around 70 km away, which would inherit a new platform.

"It is an earthquake that is happening (...) Today this demonstration is very important, even if it is only a first step, to show the government and Renault that the employees and the inhabitants of this district are attached to this business and that we are supported. We need these jobs, otherwise it is a whole territory that will die! "exclaims Jérôme Delvaux, secretary of the CGT-MCA union.

At the call of the factory inter-union (CGT, CFDT, CFTC, CFE-CGC, South), the procession began a walk shortly after 10:00 am, in bright sunshine, to reach the town hall of Maubeuge , where he arrived around 12:30 p.m.

- "My second family" -

"The Kangoo must stay at MCA", "Let us defend our jobs, not the transfer of the factory from Maubeuge to Douai", "Senard: betrayal, Macron: keep your word!", Could we read on the banners. "MCA We will be there for that! ", protesters also chant, almost all of them wearing a mask for this first gathering of such magnitude since the end of confinement.

Alongside employees, families and many elected officials, including the president of the Hauts-de-France region, Xavier Bertrand (ex-LR), the socialist senator Patrick Kanner or even the PCF deputy Fabien Roussel.

On the placards or on the back of the vests, the messages suggest the link that unites the factory to the population. "With all the efforts made, I spend almost more time with my colleagues than with my own family. It is my second family (...)", says Gabriel Lemaire, manufacturing agent.

"MCA is 21 years of my life. At 48, what do I find behind? In the region, there is nothing left, they have already broken everything". "There, they don't just break one factory, but an entire region ...", he adds. But "as long as we don't give up, there is hope," he wants to believe, saying he is determined to block the factory. "I'm going to lose money, but they are going to lose a lot more. If they want to have it, we'll have to go over it first."

For Gérard Dacosse, a resident of the region, "we undress Pierre to dress Jacques". "If MCA disappears, the whole local economy will succumb because a lot of companies are dependent on it," he laments, saying that he is "very attached" to this factory, which he saw. build in 1971.

"Nothing will come out of Maubeuge! We will fight, all together!" Shouts a representative on the balcony of the town hall, before intoning the Marseillaise, taken over by the crowd.

Next step: a meeting Tuesday morning in Bercy between union representatives, local elected officials, the Minister of Economy Bruno Le Maire and the boss of the group, Jean-Dominique Senard.

© 2020 AFP