PSA To Start Le Grande Firing

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

PSA Peugeot Citroen is planning an Opel-sized thinning of its French workforce, Reuters says, citing comments of Jean-Pierre Mercier, union representative at Peugeot’s factory in the Paris suburb of Seine-Saint Denis. The union claims that PSA wants cut 5,000 jobs. And guess who’s to blame?

Left Party presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon says credit ratings agencies are behind the decision. Moody’s had recently lowered Peugeot’s credit rating to negative.

“The result: even though the company’s profits rose 18 percent in the first half of 2011, the owner throws thousands of workers into the streets to ‘reassure the markets’,” said Melenchon.

Occuper la Bourse de Paris !

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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 8 comments
  • Bryanska Bryanska on Nov 15, 2011

    Short Paris fire insurance stock.

  • Andy D Andy D on Nov 15, 2011

    Yah, the PSA mooks prolly have MBAs from US colleges. Sheesh, any moron can boost the bottom line by cutting head count. Not to worry about long term affects

    • See 1 previous
    • Fabriced28 Fabriced28 on Nov 16, 2011

      @tallnikita French workforce is very little unionized (10% or so). Unlike in the US, there are both union and non-union people working together in the same conditions in the same plant, as well as various unions. And in case of a strike, workers outside the unions can and will often join the strike. In such a blatant case of pleasing greedy investors, you bet they will strike. 800 million euros benefit in just 6 months with the crisis running at full speed is hardly a collapsing business...

  • Kitzler Kitzler on Nov 15, 2011

    A recent TTAC article indicated that Peugeot sold less than 2000 cars per month in Germany, in the US the tally is zero, who in his/her right mind would even consider a French car? French know how to make scarves and cheese, mechanically they subcontract to zee Germans No wonder they are trying to cut down their lazy workers

    • See 1 previous
    • Eldard Eldard on Nov 16, 2011

      France should just concentrate on making luggages. Like Amerika should just concentrate on making 3D animated penguin films.

  • Fabriced28 Fabriced28 on Nov 16, 2011

    One interesting point is that job cuts will very strongly affect white-collars. R&D in France will be cut in half (2100 positions suppressed). The word is out (in serious papers) that these jobs will now be relocated in China and Brazil. This is very annoying because we're talking of the greyest matter going overseas. And what's left to us expensive westerners if not our brains?

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