Angers Technicolor : smoke of distress

In spite of the liquidation of their Angevine company pronounced last week by a bankruptcy court of Ile-de-France, the Technicolor employees are still in the factory hanging themselves on what will be soon their past. In front of the factory entrance, technicians wearing their white overall are seating around a fire of pallets, symbol of the burning anger of all the Angers staff. 

The higly visible smoke and the iron fences closing the Birgé boulevard on which a portrait of the Technicolor chairman is displayed are the clear signs that something has turned wrong in the long adjusted lifetime of work of these men and women. Inside the factory, the atmosphere, while less visible, is even more pathetic.

Some offices are desert with only a desk and empty chairs facing each others. Shelves formerly filled with reports, documents and listings are already empty. The identities of their former and last occupants are still on the doors. All of them left their office clean and in order, still motivated by a moral duty and the will to let behind them the souvenir of people caring their job. In other rooms, computers are still ligthed and a few papers give the idea there is yet work to do. In other offices, some technicians are still in place, working as if nothing has occured, as if they wanted to take, for an ultimate time, what will be soon their past forever disappeared.

On the floors of stages, sheets with graphs and figures display statistics people don't pay attention. Some of these informations already break away and will soon fall on the ground as dead leaves passers-by will walk on. More surprising, some technicians record their presence to the timekeepers of the factory as they had to do it like "before". The temperature is low. In the first chilly days of the season, the factory is not heated. The doors are opened, leaving a cold wind grabing the place. Within a few weeks, the dry air will invade the long and deserted corridors of the Technicolor factory. All lifetime of work will be gone with the wind.