Ultimately, 70% for Framatome and 30% for Naval Group: the sale of Jeumont Electric to these two entities was announced on Wednesday 14 June by Philippe Garelli, its chairman and shareholder, during an extraordinary social and economic committee. It should happen by the end of 2023. Founded in 1898 and employing 500 people in Jeumont (Nord), Avesnois, Jeumont Electric manufactures electric motors and alternators for nuclear energy, marine and industrial.

A former subsidiary of Framatome, then of Areva, the company has since 2007 belonged to the French group Altawest, chaired by Philippe Garelli, and also has three small subsidiaries in Carquefou (Loire-Atlantique), Etupes (Doubs) and Champagne-sur-Seine ( Seine-et-Marne), as well as those created in India in 2009. This represents a total of 720 employees.

“Why did the Naval Group take 30% of Jeumont Electric, which is not enough to have decision-making power and when it is able to manufacture our orders? What are his interests? » asked Florian Brasseur, CGT delegate from Jeumont Electric. “Our order book is full”he assured and, if the site loses the contract for the booster with the cancellation of Australia’s order for new submarines in September 2021, there will still be a retrofit, i.e. replacement of old components of its current fleet. . “This can sustain our activities for the next twenty years. So, obviously, the Naval Group is interested…”

“We have lost the trust of our suppliers”

“When there is a purchase or sale, it rarely happens quietly and without damage”worried Ludovic Bouvier, general secretary of CGT Métallurgie in Hauts-de-France, who said he expected “the worst”. Naval Group, for its part, declined to comment on the operation.

Narrow in on the Jeumont site – it’s simple “separated by a concrete block wall from Jeumont Electric”watching Mr. Bouvier –, Framatome, which did not respond to our requests, urgently needs to set up a new production line there and has doubled work date to recruit in waves of a hundred people. The prospects opened by Emmanuel Macron’s announcement of the construction of the future EPR and the rehabilitation of the existing nuclear fleet make Framatome too confined within its walls. This major atomic player in France (700 employees in Jeumont and Maubeuge) was relocated to Avesnois, where it purchased industrial wastelands such as Boussières-sur-Sambre, a village of 600 inhabitants located about twenty kilometers from Jeumont.

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