automobile parts to shells, a retraining under tension

Concrete fortress, it spans 35,000 m², wearing chimneys, powered by an electrical network, and surrounded by safety grids. The foundry of Brittany, installed in Caudan, has long been pride in the Pays de Lorient (Morbihan).

From its state -of -the -art molding lines and its ovens heated to over 1000 ° C came out each year tons of car cast iron parts. But since December 2024, the huge machine has been stopped. “There is almost no one left and we only worked a few weeks in four months,” sighs Maël Le Goff, CGT trade unionist.

A company created in 1966

Around him, a dozen employees gather with anxiety, on the lookout for encouraging news. Nearly 300 people have been unemployed since the foundry filed for bankruptcy. A few days before Christmas, Renault announced that he refused to commit to honoring future orders after 2025.

The automaker, which created the company in 1966 and then sold it, remained the main customer of the factory and bought more than 90 % of production. How to get out of it, now that the diamond group prefers foundries in Türkiye or Spain?

24,000 bus parts per day

However, a way out takes shape. At the beginning of March, the French group Europlasma, present in the defense sector, filed a takeover offer. After the suspension triangles or the Renault exhaust jars, the Brittany foundry could soon produce 24,000 trackers per day.

A rate to give you dizzy, which is explained by the great production capacity of the factory. With automated lines, it is designed to operate 24 hours a day. Its employees had already developed, in 2023, shell prototypes for the Thales group under the supervision of the Ministry of the Armed Forces, according to sources from the sector.

Such a change in activity is not insignificant. Especially in a historic bastion of the CGT as this foundry, where we start to work and where we naturally unionize from father to son – among the 277 employees, no less than 160 adhere to the union.

Very committed, Éric Blanchier, 54, began to work in 1993, at 21, and participated in all social struggles to prevent the closure of the factory. “I know that if I start to make shells, I will lose friends … A large part of my entourage votes for the Communist Party and, together, we have done many marches for peace. It will create friction, he admits. But today, we have the choice between shells or unemployment! This offer is an unexpected opportunity to save the business. »»

Maël Le Goff, his colleague, confirms: “We risk losing 1,000 jobs around Lorient, the 300 of our factory and those of local businesses working for us, it’s huge! »»

Case of conscience

To the test of reality, mentalities adapt. “There is a minority of employees, about two or three, who refuse to make weapons and who have announced their departure,” says Pierre*, technician. But personally, I prefer that a company produces weapons in France rather than seeing jobs spinning abroad because of relocation. All of them understood: the time of the flourishing automotive industry is over.

When he created the Breton foundry and mechanical company – the old name of the company – in 1966, in the euphoria of the Thirty Glorious Years, Renault was still a public establishment. At the height of its activity, in the 1980s, the site employed nearly 1,600 employees. The Renault group, plagued by financial difficulties, then gradually disengaged, with restructuring.

A European plan of 800 billion euros intended for rearmament

What employees had not planned, however, is that geopolitical upheavals would offer them new perspectives. With the rise of the Russian threat to Europe, many civil industries are called upon to make a transition to the defense sector.

On March 4, the European Commission presented an ambitious plan of 800 billion euros intended to rearm the old continent and provide immediate assistance to Ukraine. France now accelerates its capacity for the production of shells and Europlasma intends to take advantage of this second breath. As early as 2021, in the Hautes-Pyrénées, the group took over the forges of Tarbes, with a hundred and fifty years of existence and on the verge of bankruptcy. Today, the foundry is crumbling under orders and aims to produce 100,000 hollow bodies of bus in mid-201.

Europlasma will know on April 16 if the Rennes Commercial Court validates its takeover offer. In this case, the Armorican industry will keep 80 % of the 300 jobs at stake and can operate at full volume for several years. A new adventure. Without Renault cars.

* The first name has been changed.