Daimler seeks to sell the Smart plant in Hambach : It will be a disaster

"The company intends to initiate discussions on a sale of its French factory of automobiles in Hambach," confirmed the German manufacturer this Friday.

the direction of The site Smart at Hambach, Moselle, announced Friday the intention of Daimler to sell this plant, which was scheduled to start the production of models of the German manufacturer in the fall, a-t-on learned from the unions.

"They sell the site of the Smart and therefore they seek a buyer. This is huge. They abandon us," said Jean-Luc Bielitz, representing the CGT on the site mosellan which employs between 1,400 and 1,500 employees, confirming information of the Republican Lorrain.

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"The company intends to initiate discussions on a sale of its French factory of automobiles in Hambach," said Daimler in the day, indicating they had "set in motion numerous measures to sustainably improve its cost structure and become significantly more efficient." "An important lever for this is the adaptation and reorientation of the capacities of our global network of production", adds the German manufacturer.

End of "Smartville"

In march 2019, the automotive group Daimler, which owns the brands Mercedes-Benz and Smart, announced the end of production of the Smart in France, and its relocation in China from 2022. Instead, Mercedes had to be made from the fall of 2020. To tailor the site mosellan to this new production, Daimler had announced an investment of 500 million euros.

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"in practical terms, the Smart end between 2022 and 2024 and we will not manufacture no Mercedes on the site of Hambach", called the "Smartville" and the historical cradle of the compact car since 1998, has added Jean-Luc Bielitz. The employees were approved in a referendum in 2015, the "Pact 2020", which provided for the return to a 39-hour working week, paid 37, with a recovery of 35 hours in 2020.

"Now we releases"

"We fought like devils for five years, he has made sacrifices to have projects, there were projects and now we are released," said Mario Mutzette, delegate CFE-CGC. "In terms of social fabric, it will be a disaster", he feared.

"All that we are promised, the promises of hiring, the recovery of activity, the sustainability of the site... You can do all of the efforts that we want... The group we loose after pulling the maximum of employees," responded Jean-Luc Bielitz. According to the CFE-CGC, an economic and social committee (ESC) extraordinary is expected on Wednesday on the site.

"I hope that the future of this site is provided"

The Economy minister Bruno Le Maire called to his side the German manufacturer to "keep all options open, including that of maintaining the site as" Smart Hambach.

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"I hope that the future of this site, modern and model who has made the choice of the ecological transition by producing such electric vehicles to be insured", the minister said in a statement. This plant "is a site symbolic of the industrial relations franco-German", he insisted.