Top business lobbyist brands nationalisation 'scandalous' while the govt said lobbyist overlooking ArcelorMittal's business practices; the company plans to shut Florange unless buyer found by Dec 1.
A top French business lobbyist branded government plans to take over ArcelorMittal's Florange steelworks as "scandalous" on Thursday, leading the government to accuse her of overlooking the company's practices.
The government is locked in talks with ArcelorMittal on the fate of two blast furnaces at the site that the company plans to shut down unless it can find a buyer by Saturday.
The case has been seen as a test of Socialist President Francois Hollande's vow to stem a glut of layoffs and reverse years of industrial decline in France. But MEDEF business lobby chief Laurence Parisot said nationalising the steelworks went against the principle of private property, after Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg said the government was ready for a temporary takeover. "This declaration is purely and simply scandalous," Parisot told RTL radio.
"To undermine the principle of private property in this haphazard way is very serious and, what's more, very costly." Parisot said such an operation would be an "expropriation", leading the government to accuse her of overlooking flaws in Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal's business practices.
"I would have liked it if she used that word ('scandalous') when the owner of this site was transferring a chunk of profits from French sites over our borders, notably to Luxembourg," Budget Minister Jerome Cahuzac said. Cahuzac said Parisot had ignored what he described as the company's unfair winding down of an economically viable site to maximise profit.
The government is studying a temporary takeover of the site in northeastern France, bringing in a private investor to operate the steelworks and keep open the blast furnaces, which employ 600 people out of a total 2,700 at the site. Energy Minister Delphine Batho dismissed Parisot's comment and noted the government had no plans to be a long-term owner. Even right-wingers have rallied to the government's side on Florange, with a former adviser to ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy endorsing Montebourg's plans for the site. Officials say that temporarily nationalising the site would be legal and that ArcelorMittal would be compensated for any forced sale. The state would become part-owner only until a permanent owner was found. Analysts said the move could clash with EU law, however.
"Quite how such a process would work is unclear," said Ben Jones, France analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit. "It seems doubtful whether necessary legislation would be consistent with European Union state aid rules." Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici has sought to calm fears the plan could herald a wave of nationalisations, saying it was a one-off and appropriate given that CEO Lakshmi Mittal had broken vows to ensure the site's viability. ArcelorMittal denies breaking its commitments. Sources close to the group say it had planned before its 2006 takeover by Mittal to wind down operations including the two furnaces after 2010.
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