After the evacuation, which occurred around 9:30 am, police kept the strikers at bay, AFP journalists found, while non-striking employees, according to the CGT, dismantled the picket line.
About 80 employees of the warehouse, mostly women, have been on strike since March 20 at the call of the CGT, a minority in the company to demand wage increases.
But these strikers are determined to continue their mobilization, assured AFP one of them, Anaïs Vanneuville.
"The rage is rising more and more, a notch has been exceeded, we will not let go, once they have evacuated the site, we will take the place," she said.
Vertbaudet employees clear access to the clothing brand's site in Marquette-lez-Lille (Nord) after police evacuate a picket line on May 16, 2023 © DENIS CHARLET / AFP
The strikers are asking for "the minimum, 150 euros net per month to allow us not to survive, but to live properly," added the employee, order picker for nine years.
The CGT, a minority, refused at the beginning of March to sign an agreement on compulsory annual negotiations (NAO), validated by FO and the CFTC, which together represent 63% of employees.
The company Vertbaudet "has requested the assistance of the police force" to "proceed to the eviction of any illegal occupant of its site," said the prefecture of the North in a statement.
It blamed "numerous and serious disturbances to public order" which have "been noted in recent days, endangering the physical integrity of the people present on the site, including the hundreds of employees working there". The prefecture cites in particular an "arson of an electrical substation".
The management of Vertbaudet said in a statement that it remained "fully mobilized" to achieve, "within the framework of an open and constructive dialogue" with all the trade unions, "the resolution of the conflict in the company", estimating at "72 employees out of the 327 that counts the site" the employees continuing the strike movement.
According to the CGT, the police had already intervened Monday on the picket line, and had arrested two non-salaried activists of the site, placed in custody. Asked by AFP, the Lille prosecutor's office did not immediately communicate on the follow-up given.
In Paris, nearly 70 people gathered in front of the offices of Equistone Partners Europe (an investment fund that took over Vertbaudet in 2021), the police prefecture told AFP.
These CGT militants "came in support" of the strikers of Marquette-lez-Lille, according to Amar Lagha, secretary general of the Federation Commerce and Services of the CGT who warned: "If we have to occupy Parisian stores, we will do it!"
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© 2023 AFP