The judicial liquidation pronounced Friday by the Toulouse commercial court is "the fruit of the desire, here of Renault, to relocate its suppliers but also of the government, which although a shareholder of this national automobile company, does not maintain its support for the recovery project ", indicates the intersyndicale (CFDT, CFE-CGC, FO, FSU, CGT, Solidaires, Unsa), calling for a large rally.

Ordering the SAM, Renault refused last week to support the project to take over the site by one of its former bosses, believing that it "does not present the necessary conditions of sustainability and security".

"At Renault, the first shareholder is the State! It is a real scandal of State what is happening here", launched the leader of the CGT, Philippe Martinez, during a speech under a pouring rain.

"I do not consider the SAM to be a symbol for getting out our handkerchiefs, but a symbol of reindustrialisation in our country. Such a tool cannot be let go but is developing. We will win together!", Added Philippe Martinez.

"SAM is a textbook case: instead of supporting, we have a government that supports the breakage," Frédéric Sanchez, secretary general of the CGT metallurgy, told AFP.

The trade unionist castigates "a political choice" of the government and a scrapping "programmed" by the automotive group: "Renault is not a group that works on the sly. There is the SAM, the Foundry of Brittany, another in the Swear ... "

The secretary general of the CGT Philippe Martinez, in front of the SAM site, in Viviez, in Aveyron, December 1, 2021 Valentine CHAPUIS AFP

Among the steelworkers who came in large numbers, Jean-Philippe Juin, a CGTist from the Fonderies du Poitou, who are "also in receivership since April" and of which Renault is "the sole principal": "Tomorrow for the Fonderies du Poitou it may be the same thing ".

"When you see the parts that the friends are making here, for electric cars, hybrid engines ... this is the automotive future and we close this box? It is unacceptable," says June.

During the gathering of several thousand steelworkers in front of the SAM site, in Viviez, in Aveyron, on December 1, 2021 Valentine CHAPUIS AFP

David Sanchez denies the words of Renault's general manager, Luca de Meo, who explained Tuesday that the closure of the Aveyron site was a "systemic problem" linked to "the ecological transition, (to) the switch to electric".

"It is not audible. It is the only foundry in France where there is still a design office," said the head of the CGT steelworkers.

David Gistau, one of the CGT representatives of the small foundry, flagship of the Decazeville basin, confirms that "electricity and hybrids" already represented 50% of the site's activity.

"The support" offered by Renault puts him beside himself: "What that inspires us in Aveyron + the support +: It is the animals that we accompany to the slaughterhouse".

At the end of the morning a delegation of Aveyron farmers (Confédération paysanne and Fdsea 12) with thirty tractors joined the fifteen buses which poured out militants and steelworkers from all over France, in particular from Brittany or Paca.

© 2021 AFP