## 16 Close

Now it's official : The production plant next to my job is closing in two years. More than 80 years of Car History and no more cars in 2028-2029. We knew that it was the end since 10 years approximately but nothing was official. As always, the management was waiting the end of the local elections. Many people are hypocrites, including Unions. I heard a former colleague on the radio talking about that with hope, as many other unions. He's not there anymore, but he doesn't think about the indirect jobs impacted by that decision. It's also a shock for many workers : What will be their job in the future ? Is early retirement a good solution ? 

A car production plant, it's now less than 3000 jobs, but maybe 5000 or more if you include all the suppliers and services around. They tell that 1000 to 1200 jobs will be saved with different projects as parts manufacturing or vehicle preparation. Research and development could absorb some jobs (internal recruitment was closed for a few months) but we know that's not that simple. Some people will have to move. Some of the young people who found jobs there will not have solutions. In college and schools, they had sometimes a goal to find a job in the plant. Not anymore. Because if you look what has been done in Rennes or Aulnay, the new activities were only for a quite short transition. I don't think that the new activities will be there 10 years after the closure.

OK, the plant was a source of pollution with lots of trucks coming to bring parts. We can also say that producing and using a car is a source of pollution. That plant has not been transformed to build electric vehicles. At least, hybrid versions... And now, it's time to clean up the ground and destroy the buildings. It's all about real estate speculation. Are the workers part of the speculation ? Not even for politics,...The future is closed for many people who can't learn and change jobs. Computer or sometimes writing is not easy for everyone. I have seen many people coming from a production plant and it's a very different job in Research and development : Less pace and pressure but more autonomy and more data entry on computers. You are your own secretary, a job that has silently disappeared.

I have pictures of the destruction of the site where I started to work, 25 years ago. I have also pictures of the site where my parents worked for years. It's now an olympic site. I remember the site before the "Stade de France" in St Denis and how it was destroyed when I was very young. I remember industrial cathedral in Asnières or Boulogne Billancourt. A part of the history and social struggles. It's not easy now to tell how hard and dangerous it was to work in these industries. Some sites of mines were preserved in the north of France but around Paris, it's more interesting to make money ! 

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