Can we imagine a worse schedule? Monday, November 17, the opening of Industry Week in France: the government gathered around 150 bosses in Paris to announce new investments of 9 billion euros (out of a total of 30 billion euros in 2025), at the Choose France summit dedicated to French companies.
On the same day, the Strasbourg court decided to do so “partial assignment” from steelmaker NovAsco (formerly Ascommetal), which has been struggling for several months. Its three industrial sites in Saint-Etienne, Custines (Meurthe-et-Moselle) and Hagondange (Moselle) were liquidated, and only the Leffrinckoucke (North) factory was taken over. In total, only 144 jobs were retained out of the group’s 693 jobs.
The clash of these two pieces of information is the impact of the current situation of French industry. On the one hand, at Choose France, we celebrate the industry of the future, with almost half of the investment of 9 billion euros announced regarding the opening of data centers, which are essential for developing artificial intelligence but provide few jobs. On the other hand, we are witnessing a continuing crisis in traditional industries, faced with declining demand in European and Chinese competition. The loss of 549 jobs at NovAsco is in addition to social planning that occurred in recent months in the steel industry (ArcelorMittal, with more than 600 jobs), the automotive industry (Michelin and Valeo, with 1,254 and 866 jobs), chemicals (Vencorex, with almost 400 jobs), or the agri-food industry (Teisseire, with more than 200 jobs).
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