Mittal Not Welcome in France Said French Industry Minister - Unions Hugely Disappointed that the 600 Jobs Have been Saved

Only in France, the land of blind socialism and wealth destruction, can you read stories such as the one below.

Reading these 50 years ago during the cold war, or reading about North Korea or in some banana republic in Africa or Lat Am would not surprise me. But this is France, still one of the largest economies in the world, even though the speed of its collapse seem to be on track to be of historical proportions.

By employing the Duck Test, I can hence conclude that France is banana republic, in between a communist regime and a dictatorship by some uneducated and unintelligent leader.

The question remains: Who would still want to do business in France, create jobs or companies there, after seeing this?

By a complete lack of understanding — or maybe a total demagogic lie — the French Prime Minister concludes: The government has shown its ability to intervene to find positive outcomes for jobs and investment. OMG!

(Bloomberg) 2012-11-27 — President Francois Hollande will meet today with Lakshmi Mittal, chief executive officer of ArcelorMittal, the world’s biggest steelmaker, after a member of the French government called for the nationalization of the company’s troubled local unit. The meeting at the Elysee presidential palace in Paris follows Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg’s remarks to Les Echos newspaper yesterday that the state “doesn’t want Mittal in France anymore,” accusing the company and its CEO of lying and calling Mittal “the problem.” Mittal’s family told Le Monde dated today it was “extremely shocked” by the comments.

Montebourg’s remarks, which also include a call for a temporary state control of the company’s activities at the Florange steel-making site in north-eastern France, are the first sign the government will hold industrial companies to commitments on jobs and long-term investments, said Karine Berger, a lawmaker from the Socialist Party. [...]

While ArcelorMittal wants to shut down the furnaces at Florange, it wants to continue operating other activities at the site. It is opposing the sale of the whole of the Florange site, saying that would risk the viability of the rest of its operations in France, where the company employs 20,000 people. Montebourg says he wants the company to accept one of the two offers that he has for the whole of the Florange site.

(Bloomberg) 2012-12-01 — ArcelorMittal won’t go ahead with planned job cuts at its Florange steel mill in northeast France and will invest 180 million euros ($234 million) in the plant over the next five years, French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said. In a televised statement this evening, Ayrault said the government was dropping its threatened nationalization of Florange because of ArcelorMittal’s commitments.

“The government has shown its ability to intervene to find positive outcomes for jobs and investment,” Ayrault said. “ArcelorMittal’s engagements are unconditional, and the government will take all steps necessary in the case of non- compliance.” President Francois Hollande had given Lakshmi Mittal, the chief executive officer and biggest shareholder of the world’s largest steelmaker, until tomorrow to either keep the 600 threatened jobs at the plant, sell all of it or face its nationalization. Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg said a week ago that Mittal is no longer wanted in France. [...]

Some union leaders said they weren’t satisfied with Ayrault’s announcement. “It’s not what we expected from a Socialist government,” Frederic Maris, a representative of the CGT union, said in a live interview on BFM television. “We were expecting a new buyer or a nationalization. We don’t want to see ArcelorMittal any more. It’s a huge disappointment.”