Michelin Worker Faces Unemployment as Vannes Plant Set to Close

The future is darkening for Mustapha Arhzaf, 58, a worker at the Michelin plant in Vannes. This Italian-Moroccan, who joined the tire giant’s plant in 2016, is threatened with losing his job. The Breton plant will have to close its doors by 2025, reports Le Télégramme. A situation that worries his 300 colleagues and him. "The announced closure on November 5th was really a blow for everyone, even for management, I saw it on their faces," he says. "Most of my colleagues, until now, they can’t digest the news. They had made plans for the years to come, and from one day to the next, it all collapsed," summarizes the versatile worker, with 27 years of seniority at Michelin.

He has already had the bitter experience in Italy with the same manufacturer in 2016. At the time, he discovered via the Facebook page of the mayor of Fossano that the Michelin plant where he had been working for 18 years was closing. "It was brutal. We were angry that day, me and all my friends! We went on strike, marched, we did everything... and then we went back to work. But it wasn’t like before," notes Mustapha. This closure was part of the social plan in Fossano.

But the MRE has experienced this situation badly. "Before, when you worked, you wanted to produce, you thought about the future. But when you already have the closure in mind, you work for nothing. You have no goal. And I think it’s the same here in Vannes now..." he adds. Currently, "we work to hold on until the closure, that’s how it is," the 58-year-old worker completes. The almost sexagenarian is worried about his future, especially what Michelin will offer him after the closure of the Vannes site. According to him, relocations to Clermont-Ferrand, the group’s headquarters, may be proposed. The only problem: Mustapha feels "too old" to be uprooted a second time. "It remains in France, but I no longer want to move," he explains.

Mustapha finds himself in a difficult situation: the retirement age is 64 in France and 67 in Italy, "where he has contributed for the majority of his working life." "It will be hard to find a job here, with all the factories closing. And the hard work, I won’t be able to do it anymore," estimates the Moroccan. In any case, "it’s the last Christmas we’re spending here. At Michelin Vannes, there’s no more work, there’s nothing left," laments the versatile worker.