Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Sept 4, 2017 (III)

choi

(4) Helene Fouquet and Ania Nussbaum with Zoe Schneeweiss, France's Industrial Past Haunts Macron.
www.bloomberg.com/news/features/ ... l-past-haunt-macron

Quote (print):

(a) "Barely two weeks into his presidency, Emmanuel Macron was confronted by an angry factory worker on the streets of Bellac in central France. The man was demanding the government save his job at the GM&S Industry France, an auto components plant in the nearby town of La Souterraine that faced closure. The figure of the irate laborer is fast becoming a theme of the Macrom era: The complainant could have come from the STX shipyard in Saint-Nazaire, construction equipment maker Tim SA in Quaëdypre, or other troubled enterprises.

"Government aid has kept GM&S open and workers paid through August. Its fate now rests with a commercial court in Poitiers in western France. On Sept 4 the court rules on whether to approve a takeover bid by rival parts maker GMD, which has said it would keep only 120 of the 277 workers employed at the GM&S factory.

"Macron has appealed to entrepreneurs and technologists to come and invent the future in France, but his biggest challenge may be whether he can deal with the legacy of France's industrial past. Throughout the country, in factories such as GM&S's, aging workers operate dusty, antiquated machinery, frozen in time by a labor code that was first drawn up over a century ago.

(b) "That's the dilemma at the heart of Macron's sometimes contradictory vision for France. The former investment banker wants market forces to drive the euro zone's second-largest economy to the same level as Germany's. But as his approval rating continues to fall and fe remains wary of the populist anger that he faced during the presidential election, Macron is trying to shield some workers from the market's logic.
While Macron won

(c) "GM&C was a one buoyant, family-owned metal-stamping plant that made front bumpers, oil pans, and tractor cabins in the hills of central France, where cows outnumber people. With workers in 1990s, it was the biggest employer in the region of La Creuse. After two decades  of revolving-door management, little worker training, and few machine upgrades, GM&S is threatened with closure by the court.

(d) "Industry's share of France's gross domestic product has dropped to 13 percent, from 20 percent in 1980, according to an industry employers group, and the sector has lost 330,000 jobs since 2008.

Note:
(a) summary underneath the title in print: Can the president save aging workers' jobs and still push a vision of France as a startup nation?
(b) The print and online versions are different.
(c) Macron assumed office of presidency on May 14, 2017. The confrontation occurred on June 9, 2017 and was taped; there are many reporters present.

Bellac
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellac
(d) I fail to find an English-language news report on Sept 4 court ruling.
(e) Martin Neil Baily and Barry P Bosworth, US Manufacturing: Understanding Its Past and Its Potential Future. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 28: 3–26 (2014).
https://www.brookings.edu/resear ... s-potential-future/

Read only sentence 1 and view Figure 1. Productivity gain in US manufacturing offset employment loss.  Beware, industry and manufacturing is not the same: for example, coal-mining may be industry but not manufacturing.