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French workers threaten to blow up factory

Explosive redundancy cash demand

Workers at a bankrupt French car parts factory have decided that the best way to get some redundancy cash is to threaten to blow up the factory.

According to Autocar, the 366 belligerent ex-employees of New Fabris in Chatellerault have seized the premises and are ready and willing to detonate stockpiled gas bottles unless Renault and PSA Peugeot Citroën cough 30k for each worker - to match the amount the two car makers apparently paid to 200 former employees of another defunct supplier.

Renault and PSA accounted for 90 per cent of the factory's output. There are car parts with an estimated value of €2m still inside, along with a Renault machine worth another €2m. The companies have until 31 July to stump up the cash or face the consequences.

Guy Eyermann, CGT union official and secretary of the company works council, insisted: "The gas bottles are in the factory. Everything has been planned for it to blow up.

"We are not going to let PSA and Renault wait until August or September to recover the spare parts and machines still in the factory. If we get nothing, they get nothing at all."

Aficionados of revolting French workers will recall that the "communist-leaning" CGT union had a hand in the kidnapping of local Sony chief exec who'd popped into the company's video tape plant in Pontonx-sur-l'Adour to bid adieu to the 300 dismissed staff. ®

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