Paris (AFP)

The management of Sanofi-Aventis Research and Development (R&D) said Thursday, according to several union sources, that it wanted to cut 364 jobs in France, while in Strasbourg, employees demonstrated against the transfer to the Paris region of all of the 56 stations at the Alsatian site.

At a central social and economic committee (CSE), management indicated that the job cuts would "mainly target research", according to union sources.

This reorganization will be carried out via an employment safeguard plan (PSE) including a voluntary departure plan (PDV), they added.

These job cuts and transfers are part of the restructuring announced in June 2020 by the pharmaceutical group Sanofi.

The laboratory then said it wanted to cut up to 1,700 jobs in Europe, including a thousand in France over three years.

At Sanofi-Aventis R&D, the restructuring will concern "the four sites" of this entity of the pharmaceutical group, located in Strasbourg, Montpellier, Vitry-sur-Seine (Val-de-Marne) and Chilly-Mazarin (Essonne), d ' after union sources.

The job cuts will affect "mainly research", but "synthetic chemistry and site support functions" will also be affected, they added.

For voluntary departures, the plan provides for a pre-retirement scheme, training aid or even business creation aid.

This reorganization should be carried out "within a year, except for Strasbourg which would have six more months," said one of the union sources.

"For Strasbourg, it will not be a question of volunteering but of internal reclassification in Vitry-sur-Seine. Ultimately, Strasbourg will no longer be a Sanofi site," said this source.

"There seems to be an active search for a buyer," another union source reported.

- "Strasbourg excellence" -

Asked by AFP, the management of the Sanofi group did not want to "comment on these elements", saying "respectful of the calendar and the social dialogue which must above all take place within the company".

"R&D France is at the heart of Sanofi's innovation ambition" and will benefit from "massive investments", as part of the "new strategy", she assured.

The other job cuts planned in France and announced in June, concerning other group entities, have already been negotiated.

Collective contractual termination (RCC) agreements were signed last year.

In Strasbourg, Sanofi employees, supported by LREM deputies, demonstrated against their transfer to the Paris region.

"Sanofi is sacrificing its excellence in Strasbourg," proclaimed the banner behind which some thirty of the 56 staff members of this site dedicated to R&D in immuno-oncology gathered.

On their coats, these scientists had drawn the pieces of a chess game, to express their feeling of "being expendable pawns".

"The fact of offering us a transfer to the Paris region is a way of hiding the reality: most employees will not be able to go there for personal, financial or family reasons, so it's a roundabout way of telling us: + we get rid of you + ", François Spielmann, an employee in the support service, told AFP.

"What can happen to a site where there is no one left? It's the closure," said Anne Eschbach.

"Even though the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire guaranteed last week that there would be no site closure."

According to several employees, four potential buyers would be interested in the Strasbourg site.

According to a delegate who participated in the central CSE, management wants to give itself "time to study the possibility of a buyer".

© 2021 AFP