In March 2013, during my bike tour of France, I took some photographs of the struggles of workers at PSA Aulnay and Petroplus, a factory and a refinery threatened with closure. Studing, among other topics, the theme of energy, I told myself that images of these two places, very much in the news at the time, would not be useless in the end. As oil and cars are, as everyone knows, very important elements of our thermo-industrial societies -oil represents 29% of the energy in France (1)-, we think that this small work can be seen as a complement to the documents (especially the series of COPs) that we have undertaken.
From March 2012 to October 2019, I (alone at first and later with Helen), made, to say it briefly, a kind of "Tour de France" lasting over twenty months and covering 20,500 km.
The objectives at the beginning were to discover a little the country and meet its inhabitants, continue the research started in Spain on agriculture a few years earlier, and start a work on energy by visiting all the country's nuclear power plants for example, etc.
During all these months I kept a daily journal. Here are two excerpts of my visit to Aulnay-sous-Bois and Petit-Couronne (near Rouen).
« Sunday 17 March 2013
(...) Friday I went to Aulnay-sous-Bois to play the "fool". I thought it would be interesting to go and see what's going on around the PSA plant which, I had heard, was threatened to close due to poor results. In my mind, the oil that becomes "beyond reach" for many people at the pump, the cars that don't sell anymore..., all fit into the project "Energy" that I am leading.
I walk along the fence of the factory for a while without seeing much to photograph. No activity, no banners, almost no posters, this is nothing like what I saw at the Petroplus Refinery near Rouen for example.
Shit, I'm not going to return empty-handed anyway. That's why I insist and I don't regret it. As I pass the staff entrance gates again I see that they are open. I then go to the turnstile (I don't know what it's called) where the guys are hiring. A small group distributes leaflets. I need a moment to calculate the lady who gives me a printed sheet and then say spontaneously : "Hello Madam Buffet, you know at Sipa press things are not going well either, I would like to photograph the picketing strikers inside, but I don't know how ... "
It's Carlos (Carlos Ghosn as they call him!), a worker who is witnessing the scene who shows me around the factory and takes me to the logistics hangar, the nerve center of the strike. There I argue with young filmmakers who show black and white films made in 68 on the occupations of factories (which were good fun for the strikers of the day). I also approach a photographer "having the card" and say to him: "I know you, you are … Hello I am Thomas Chassaing." Well he acted as if he knew my name! Am I to believe that I am known in Paris! I will soon be able to walk around like him, with two Leica M6 around the neck then! Joking aside, I look at him work and I must say he makes a good impression. Discreet, fast, knowing how to give an incredible smile if someone were to ask him something.
Small topo of their fight: it is now nine weeks of striking (total stop since January 16). Out of 1,600 workers there are 500 strikers. Too little to try to avoid closing the site but enough they tell me not settle for peanuts. Around 20,000 euros if you have seniority. They ask for 120,000 euros to get 90,000. As for the tensions between the strikers and the non-strikers reported in the media, they tell me about the misinformation on the part of the management to give a bad image of their movement. Should stay longer on the site and talk to everyone to find out what's going on but this is beyond my availabilities. (...)
Monday 19 March2013, on the train between Paris and Lisieux
We left Normandy Monday at 10 am so that Petit-Père dropped me at the headquarters of the PSA, located at 75 Avenue de la Grande Armée, almost at the foot of the Arc de Triomphe for 13 hours.
The strikers at the Aulnay-sous-Bois plant had planned to keep the pressure on the management while an exceptional CEC (central work council) would be held.
A short summary read the next day in the 20 minutes newspaper with the title « "The restructuring plan adopted":
"The breakers are the bosses" About 200 employees of the plant PSA Peugeot Citroen d'Aulnay (Seine St Denis) marched Monday along Avenue de la Grande Armée (16e) in front of the headquarters of the automobile division. Tires were burned on the road and the situation became tense when the CRS began encircling the demonstrators, who used firecrackers and smoke bombs. This confrontation took place while PSA consulted again Monday afternoon with employee representatives on the draft agreement on social plans in Aulnay-sous-Bois (2,800 jobs) and Rennes (1,400 jobs). In December, an unfavorable opinion was issued the unions. But the company has this time obtained the support of the majority of them (with the exception of the CGT) to its restructuring plan to stem losses. » (2)
I would like to add that the CGT announced, following the central works council that it was going to take legal action in order to "counter the management of PSA and blow up the social plan" (Jean-Pierre Mercier, Union Delegate). (3)
Once the demonstration was over, I managed to get into the press conference of Denis Martin, industrial director of PSA and number two of the group, who said "we are able to offer one or even several job solutions to each employee." (4)
To a question posed by a reporter he explained that the Aulnay site represents 5% of the industrial volume in Europe and that its activity would be maintained until 2014 in order to produce C3. (5) And that the factory capacity in Europe is still 75%. He did not know or did not want to say but what the percentage was in France. (...)
This morning I'm going back to the Aulnay factory trying to take pictures that I could not get last time for lack of film (but this time I wasn't lucky enough to get in). In the afternoon while waiting for the train that will take me back to my bike, I go to the Fnac St Lazarre. Thanks to a computer I surf the web and discover the portfolio of the "handsome" photographer I met earlier. OK, it's honest but it does not break bricks either. When I think of all the work that I had to do in Spain to have the honor of having a portfolio on the Le Monde site, words fail me. Well, I'll stop with this perpetual loser refrain, my mood is good at the moment, I do not need to bother.
Thursday 21 March 2013
(...) At Petroplus, I find the same union banners in front of the guard post as the previous time. There is a strong sense of being under siege that touches me and annoys me at the same time.
I think it's been more than a year and a half now that the refinery has been looking for a buyer and, if I believe the reaction of the people who have apostrophized me while I'm photographing, the conclusion should not be long in coming: "Take some photos, soon everything will be closed, there's not much longer to go."
Evening at the home of a host who had welcomed me last time in December. She knows the Petroplus file well and inevitably we talk about the refinery. For her there is no doubt that in April the case will be closed. There is no real buyer, refining in France is too expensive because of environmental standards and there is the policy of "all diesel" that doesn't help ... She is also bitter towards the unions for not telling the truth (no buyer) and maintaining hope, whatever the cost, lures the people. "They will take a monumental slap and unfortunately they are not prepared at all. It seems that even if one speaks nowadays of certain psycho-social risks (and not those one would think of spontaneously) they seem to ignore them completely."
In 2016, the Court of Cassation dismissed the appeal of former employees of the Petroplus refinery in Petit-Couronne against the closure of their site. Here are two small articles on the question:
« In a press release titled "France no longer wants refining" Yvon Scornet CGT spokesman for these former employees said Monday he regrets this ruling of the Court of Cassation. "France needs heavy industries and not just the tertiary sector or tourism, France is not a giant Disneyland." Yvon Scornet repeats that he is still "in possession" of several recovery files of the refinery being dismantled. He also criticizes the clean up proposal from Valgo, the company responsible for this operation, and the job creation figures they promised - replacing the 500 refinery jobs - he considers "wacky". (6)
« On May 13, Valgo signed a partnership agreement in Paris with logistics real estate investor Gazeley. It plans to acquire 30 hectares on the site of the former refinery to build several buildings with a total area of 18 hectares and rent them to logistics players. (…) » (7)
* It should be noted that in February 2016 Françoise Davisse's film "Comme des Lions" was released, retracing the two-year struggle of PSA Aulnay employees against the closure of the plant.
** Shortly before the launch of the site (June 2021) I finished Thomas Porcher's book "Les délaissés - Comment transformer un bloc divisé en force majoritaire" published by Pluriel. A few pages in the book look back at these two significant stories.
Here is an extract concerning Petroplus (which we have reduced but which is interesting to read in full in his book):
« […] Ce soir-là, j’ai pu mesurer combien la fermeture d’une usine ne touche pas que les salariés. Le sort de Pétroplus ne concernait pas seulement les 450 salariés, il affectait également les emplois indirects (restaurateurs, livreurs, etc.) dépendant de l’activité de la raffinerie et bien sûr les familles. Au final, ce n’était pas 450 mais plus de 2000 personnes qui étaient touchées.
Les raisons avancées pour justifier la fermeture des raffineries étaient toujours les mêmes. Surcapacités de production et marges trop faibles. […] Mais la réalité est beaucoup plus complexe et une grosse partie des maux du raffinage trouve sa source dans la financiarisation de l’économie.
Le premier problème provient de l’inadaptation de l’offre […]. […]depuis les années 1990, la demande française en diesel ne cesse de croître - elle représente autour de 80% de la consommation de carburant-, alors que la demande en essence connaît une forte diminution. Les raffineries françaises se trouvent donc obligées d’exposer leur production d’essence qu’elles n’arrivent pas à écouler en France et d’importer du diesel de l’étranger. […]
La question qui reste en suspens est alors : « Pourquoi ne réalise t-on pas les transformations qui permettraient aux raffineries de notre pays de répondre à la demande française ? » C’est là qu’interviennent tous les travers de la logique financière.
[…] plus les profits des compagnies sont importants en exploration-production plus celles-ci veulent fermer des raffineries car la logique boursière pousse la direction à vouloir satisfaire les actionnaires en se séparant des unités de production les moins rentables. […]
Que vont répondre les élites économiques et médiatiques à ces fermetures de raffineries ? Que c’est la logique économique et qu’il faut accepter le principe de la destruction créatrice, qu’il faut que ces familles soient mobiles et se dirigent vers les zones de croissance, que les raffineries produisent du carburant qui pollue et qu’il faut donc les fermer pour entamer la transition énergétique ? Tous les arguments sont bons pour cliver en opposant la vieille industrie polluante à la nouvelle industrie soi-disant propre, humilier les salariés refusant la mobilité, l’adaptation ou, nous dira-t-on, l’écologie, et in fine justifier la fermeture. Jamais, il n’est question de remettre en cause la financiarisation de l’économie qui abandonne ces salariés au hasard des actions du marché ou de rappeler l’importance des raffineries qui assurent notre sécurité d’approvisionnement.
Bien sûr, si une vraie transition écologique se mettait en place, des raffineries seraient amenées à fermer, mais c’est un processus qui ne peut en aucun cas se faire du jour au lendemain- compte tenu de la dépendance des français à la voiture […] »
Another extract from the book, this time concerning PSA:
« […] Retrait de l’État,
casse du modèle social et lois « travail » :
la recette pour disposer d’une main-d'œuvre
corvéable à merci
Hier les ouvriers et employées usines, aujourd’hui les services à la personne et les chauffeurs Uber, la banlieue a toujours été un grenier à main-d'œuvre. Comme la France des territoires, les banlieusards ont connu les effets négatifs de la mondialisation, à la suite des fermetures et des délocalisations d’usines. C’est dans ce contexte que s’accélère la paupérisation des grands ensembles qui avaient été initialement construits pour loger cette main d’œuvre. Par exemple à Aulnay-sous-Bois, où la fermeture du site PSA en 2013 a appauvri les grands ensembles au nord de la ville, notamment la cité des 3000. Aujourd’hui le taux de pauvreté des ménages y atteint 50 %. […] »
Links accessed on June 18, 2021:
(1) https://www.statistiques.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/2020-09/datalab_70_chiffres_cles_energie_edition_2020_septembre2020.pdf
(2) https://docplayer.fr/87895575-Le-bilan-global-des-accidents-n-est-pas-alarmant-p-9.html
(3) https://www.leparisien.fr/seine-saint-denis-93/la-cgt-se-tourne-vers-la-justice-19-03-2013-2651265.php
(4) https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/paris-ile-de-france/2013/02/05/la-direction-de-psa-indique-qu-elle-dispose-d-assez-de-possibilites-de-reclassement-pour-tous-les-salaries-d-aulnay-194315.html
(5) https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/paris-ile-de-france/seine-saint-denis/psa-aulnay-sous-bois-la-derniere-voiture-341835.html
(6) https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/normandie/la-cour-de-cassation-rejette-le-recours-des-ex-petroplus-de-petit-couronne-1004613.html
(7) https://www.usinenouvelle.com/article/pres-de-rouen-petroplus-tourne-la-page-du-petrole.N836885
In March 2013, during my bike tour of France, I took some photographs of the struggles of workers at PSA Aulnay and Petroplus, a factory and a refinery threatened with closure. Studing, among other topics, the theme of energy, I told myself that images of these two places, very much in the news at the time, would not be useless in the end. As oil and cars are, as everyone knows, very important elements of our thermo-industrial societies -oil represents 29% of the energy in France (1)-, we think that this small work can be seen as a complement to the documents (especially the series of COPs) that we have undertaken.
From March 2012 to October 2019, I (alone at first and later with Helen), made, to say it briefly, a kind of "Tour de France" lasting over twenty months and covering 20,500 km.
The objectives at the beginning were to discover a little the country and meet its inhabitants, continue the research started in Spain on agriculture a few years earlier, and start a work on energy by visiting all the country's nuclear power plants for example, etc.
During all these months I kept a daily journal. Here are two excerpts of my visit to Aulnay-sous-Bois and Petit-Couronne (near Rouen).