The French group Michelin, world leader in tires, announced on Thursday a voluntary departure scheme in France covering “up to 1,500 positions over three years”.
“Up to 1,500 positions could be eliminated” in France, including “two thirds in tertiary functions and a third in industry,” said personnel director France and Southern Europe, Olivier Faure-Vauris. No specific industrial site will be targeted. The group’s tertiary jobs are located in Paris, Clermont-Ferrand and Lille. The plan will be “based on volunteering and no departure will be forced,” added Olivier Faure-Vauris.
The group had already cut 1,246 jobs in France in 2024 as part of an employment protection plan (PSE), by closing two industrial sites in the west of the country, in Cholet (Maine-et-Loire) and Vannes (Morbihan). Michelin currently employs 17,000 people in France, where it still has 13 industrial sites.
“Loss-making” industrial activities
A year ago, before a committee of the National Assembly, the group’s boss, Florent Ménégaux, declared that industrial activities in France were “deficit”. Nearly 3.5 billion euros have been invested in France over the last ten years, Michelin recalled.
The French context is marked by “high levels of production costs, linked in particular to the cost of labor and energy, as well as tax pressure among the highest in industrialized countries”, argues the group in a press release, which specifies that it wants to reduce its costs.
Michelin recorded sales down 5.4% in the first quarter, to 6.2 billion euros. This decline was attributed to exchange rate effects. The tire business, by far the company’s main business, fell by 1.4% in volume over one year.
