Offers of job in Canada and Australia welcomed with contempt by Angers Technicolor employees

The news, published on Tuesday in the Angers medias, looks to outrage editors. Though, what was disgraceful in the offers of redeployment sent to former employees of Angers Technicolor factory? These apply, not only to French sites of the group, but to foreign countries where Technicolor has subsidiaries : "Poland, Australia, Canada, Thaïland, Vietnam", writes a local daily newspaper adding three laconic points : "...". 

If such offers of job in foreign countries presuppose important changes in life for employees who would agreee, was it appropriate to title under the catcher "The sentence of the day" : the statement of a Technicolor employee : "I saw a job in Thaïland? Do you see me going there? For holidays, I'm ok".
Above the preposterous tune of the statement, that one looks completly wrong regarding the kind of life people may face in Canada and Australia which are Western countries and where unemployment is much more lower than in France : 7% in Canada at the end of 2011, 5% in Australia and 10% in France...

Credit Picture : Technicolor Australia

It is sure that, in simply mailing these offers by post, Technicolor only succeeded to disparage them (it would have been wiser to gather the employees first). On the other hand, these opinions, and moreover, their reproduction crossbred with contempt in newspapers, traduce maybe an ignorance about foreign reality and above all, an overestimation of the competitiveness of the social and economic French model.

Technicolor employees in the middle of a battle between government, France Telecom and their heaquarters

In the failure of the takeover procedure of Angers Technicolor, who is responsible? The government, through its minister of Numerical economy, Fleur Pellerin, who claimed, when she came in Angers to inaugurate the new Eseo campus, that a contract for the manufacture in Angers of decoders has been signed between France Telecom and Technicolor and that this contract has been broke by Technicolor France? Or, is it France Telecom, noticing that Technicolor would not be able to produce the decoders in time, which broke the contract and gave the workload to Sagem?
 
The employees says they are not able "to tell fact from fiction"? But,"in the end, it's the Angers employees who will pay the price while they could manufacture decoders for a company in which the French state has 27% of the capital stock", say the angers trade-unions.

The minister's arguments are called into question by those. Why could be the interest of Technicolor to break a one year contract? Moreover, if the deadline was so important, why Sagen has not yet produce the item? One of the trade unions leaders, Odile Coquereau, accuse the government to protect France Telecom. During that time, Angers employees of Technicolor demonstrated under a heavy rain in town among colleagues of other local companies.

The Angers city will not allow stores to open on Sundays before Christmas

The negative trends in the Angers economy have, maybe, not yet be understood by local representatives. In a series of meetings with inhabitants of the Lac de Maine district, and among them stores owners, the Angers mayor, Frédéric Beatse, announced that not a single mayor of Angers Loire Métropole authority will grant authorization for shops to work on the last Sunday before Christmas. 

It's not sure such a decision will please store owners of Angers down town who will demonstrate once again on Tuesday against the city policy regarding shops. The opening of stores during the no working days of the end of year holidays is one of their claims. It would be consistent that, at the same period, the city decides that wooden huts set up during the same period be closed too. But that would perhaps reduce the interest to get from town hall a (charged) place in down town streets.

The Sundays before Christmas are "an auspicious period for shops" said recently the president of their association, Fabien Rebours. "The wooden huts rent by the town are authorized to open but at the same time the store owners have not that right. This is unfair competition. We ask fairness for all, the same rule for all". Such a demand, for a few days per year, will contribute to the vitality of Angers down town, an issue which certainly interests the mayor.

Political concerns for 2014 Angers polls risk to be out of step with present economic worries

The slow approach of the 2014 municipal polls start to worry people and politicians, both from the right and the left sides. The potential candidates to head Angers town hall may have been themselves surprised by some initiatives. 

Credit Picture Angers city

On the right side, Christophe Béchu, present president (Ump) of the Conseil général de Maine-et-Loire, has clearly expressed his disagreement and even his bitterness after Jean-François Copé, a proeminent character of French politics, announced that Mr. Béchu will be candidate to Angers town hall. On the left side, the present Angers mayor, Frédéric Beatse, discovered that week that some left personalities of Angers, and among them a Maine-et-Loire senator, launched an appeal for primaries between himself and his contender, Jean-Luc Rotureau. 

It's not sure such initiatives are really well-timed given the economic difficulties Angers inhabitants are facing. With the closure of Technicolor, a page of economic history of Angers is turning over. Recently, the statistics disclosed a worrying trend of unemployment in the city : 9,3% of the persons able to work in the city are jobless. The store owners of down town announced a new demonstration against the deterioration of their business because of town hall initiatives, what could be linked to a new slowdown of households expenses. Are Angers inhabitants already interested by 2014 elections?

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.

Angers town hall vomits over-drinking behaviours among students

The alcohol consumption among students still catches the attention of Angers city. That one, with 33 000 students, about one person out of five, has had to deal in the  past with the consequences of students parties on nocturnal calmness of town for its inhabitants. The measures it recently took point out that Angers representatives are also worried by the consequences of over-drinking for students themselves. If on October 10th, about 30 students associations signed an agreement in favor of more calm parties, the text also tries to inform young people to risky behaviours.

In different campuses of the city, kits of alcool prevention have been distributed. Those, made up thank a cooperation between town hall, students mutual insurance companies, unviersitarian preventive medical department, students associations, include men and female condoms dedicated to warn people about the risks of unsafe, even suffered, sexual relations, and documents about dangerous situations coming from over-drinking. All these items are gathered in a sick bag.

On November, that initiative will be accompanied by a video competition opened to people from 15 to 30 years old. In order to introduce its initiative to students, Angers city had used a theatre company who performed sketches in the different campuses of Angers university.

Hundreds of Angers dancers for a flash mob in front of the Grand Théâtre

The bleak sky which covered Angers city on Saturday afternoon didn't dissuade five hundred or so dancers to gather in Ralliement square for a Nrj flash mod announced on You Tube a few days ago. The forecourt in front of the Grand Théâtre was the floor for a Gangnam style dance whose sequences were described by the radio channel on internet. The phenomena apparently attracted young boys and girls from very different social classes, some of the girls put in fancy dress, like a sexy nurse uniform, for the event. 

A flash mob is "a group of people who assemble suddenly in a place, perform an unusual and seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, and artistic expression", indicates Wikipedia. The Angers Nrj flash mob was organized via Facebook. The topic of the Angers dance had someting to do with horse universe because people were due to move as if they were riding horse with a lasso. But dancers didn't respected closely the intructions of the organizers most of them waving arms as if they were demontrating.

 What looks amusing for an observer (who doesn't dance) is that the piquancy of the event comes both from people who dance and people who look at dancers. If the adults present on the square were apparently amused by the sequence, some elders persons looked more dumbfounded...

An English visitor expresses his trouble regarding the lack of cleanliness of Angers down town

The Adn post "Angers down town inhabitants complain about unbearable conditions" published on October 8th led an English reader to react. "What a horrifying piece of editorial", he wrote. " A friend of mine works in France at least twice a month, and knowing my interest in the area around Angers he stayed in the city last week for a couple of nights". That foreign follower "spoke with (his friend) and (that one) was quite embarrased to tell that he felt that the City was very dirty".

But that lack of cleanliness was not his unique trouble. Because of "his obvious Englishness", he triggered unvoluntarily "load and abusive comments" by "a group of yobs" walking around down town. Nevertheless writes the English reader of Adn, "I am encouraging friends to visit Angers". "But, he concludes, please tell M. Beatse (the Angers mayor) that he must do something as tourism should be actively encouraged for strong economic reasons".

The quiet Angers at fast-forward speed

"Let us turn to the Angevine Hour" are two curious short videos recently introduced on the Angers city website. The two movies describe in fast-forward speed the pace of a city mostly considered as a quiet (and sometimes, a little bit lazy "person") on early morning and at lunch-time. The two short pieces, accompanied by a mind-blowing music were directed by Angers town hall. Both are inspired by the atmosphere of the city when "she" is taking an autumnal aspect. 

"Good morning Angers", the first video shots mainly two illustrative places of the city : the maine River viewed from the Bout du monde walkway. The river remains a kind of vital arteria. As the sun is rising, animation around the river appears : a bakery opening its frontside, the cars traffic starting to accelerate. And the Maine itself gets rid of veils of fog like a lady who would leave a four poster bade opening thin curtains. The second emblematic place, the Ralliement square is the stage of the daily set-up of terraces preparing to welcome customers.

"Angers lunch time" is the following sequence and it starts where the previous one has ended, on Ralliement square. After the increase of pedestrians and bikers, the camera goes in the Toussaint library where it's so nice to read close to the Fine-Arts Museum garden. Then the video stages the trolley which, at the fast-forward speed, slips and squeezes throughout down town. After a little walk at an open air market which whet inhabitants appetite, it's time for a quick but tempting lunch. 

Others episodes should be waited by Angers lovers because nice moments in Angers daily life remain to be staged.
 

Technicolor : black screen

Since the jugment of the Nanterre bankrupcy court on Thursday, Technicolor, previously Thomson, belongs to the industry past of Angers. About 350 employees, most of them in the factory for numerous years, find themselves without job. And the end of a gloomy day for them and the Angers city whose Technicolor was an industrial symbol, silence and dark hung over the factory : the car park was empty, the doors closed and, except two red fashing lights looking to a medical alarm, the frontside without lights...

A back banner has been set up along the fences of the factory : "plot of land for sale". That one has already buyers : Angers city and Angers Loire Métropole which want to maintain to the place its industrial purpose. That will not be easy because the loss of competitiveness of the site is largely due to careless national measures, and first of all the preposterous reduction of the work time whose Technicolor employees foot the bill. 

It is possible that Technicolor has organized the liquidation of its last industrial site in Europe because consumers of tv decoders want lower prices. But it is also sure that the French state, which owns about 27% of the capital stock of Technicolor, was unable to ensure a workload to Angers Technicolor to overcome the necessary period for a possible takeover. That demonstrates that Angers must think about the local ways to recover from such a disaster.

The Angers local authorities announce they will buy the Technicolor site

Even though the Nanterre bankcupcy court has not yet returned a verdict about the liquidation of the Angers Technicolor factory, Angers Loire Métropole and Angers city have announced they will buy the site and the production facilities. Their aim, officialy passed on the Nanterre tribunal, is to keep the area available for every new industrial project.

This is a good idea even if, in the difficult economic period Angers is brought face to face, a single or several industrial projects could hardly need all the surfaces of the Technicolor site. The surface of the buildings has a total of 70 000 square metres while the industrial site covers 13,5 hectares. Is a development of industrial activities economically conceivable? Is it technically feasible (if the grounds are polluted, they will have to be cleaned out and the two local authorities will have to finance the cost given the site will be their own)? And is it desirable because the Technicolor area is now surrounded by collective and individual homes?

Desjardins district

Probably a part of the area could be converted from activities to housing. While the costs of fuel is soaring, many people think it would be wise for them to live not too far from the places where they work. Angers is involved in the development of sustainable districts (Les Hauts de Saint-Aubin or Desjardins), has the implementation of a similar district in the Technicolor area already be considered? Property taxes and housing taxes could possibly compensate the disappearance of the revenues generated by Technicolor. Maybe have the Angers authorities already thought about it? 

Angers city will have to learn from the Technicolor end of story

After Continental, Nec, Act, Angers should face in the days to come a symbolic disappearance : the closure of Thomson, the jewel of the industrialization of the city during the 50's. Having employed till 3 500 persons to the manufacture of tv sets, the factory will lay off its last 350 technicians. If that sad event has something to do with the madness of the time work reduction law which, since 15 years, drove uncompetitive dozens of companies and thousands of employees all over Angers, it is now desirable that the city learns lessons from that event. 


The first is there are no employees without employers. And, in that way, the opinion of an Angers real-estate agent a few weeks ago was right : Angers doesn't lack housing, it lacks companies. If the quality of life in the city comes from public facilities (a giant swimming pool, new banks along the river, a new congress center...), this is not sufficient. Inhabitants need jobs, so employers. But are the conditions gathered in Angers to fuel new companies? Here is the second lesson. A few years ago, the companies have to finance a large part of the first trolley line. How will the city do to finance a new one? Few by few, all these expenses financed by private companies increase the overall cost of work and makes other workers, even with low qualifications, in other countries, more competitive... In the Technicolor case, it is not sufficiently said that all to work load is leaving Angers to Manaus (Brazil)...

A few weeks ago, all the cities members of the Angers Loire Métropole launched a "battle for jobs". Its chairman, Jean-Claude Antonini was proud of "a common will to take part to the return of growth" in Angers. All the conditions are now gathered to implement that policy. 

Angers down town inhabitants complain about unbearable conditions

According to some observers of life in Angers down town, inhabitants would experiencing increasing difficulties. In Baudrière street, residents face growing inconveniencies. Stairwells, halls of building become impossible to keep in normal conditions : rubbish are on the stairs because people coming from the outside of the buildings take pleasure to scatter them in the common parts. But sometimes, inhabitants themselves don't care about the wastes they let in the stairs. 

These facts are noticed whatever be the category of the buildings : new, ancient, social or private. These complains of inhabitants may be added to the demands of Angers store owners which ask more cleanliness facilities from town hall. The problem is that costs a lot of money while the period is rather to the decrease of current expenses. Several years ago, Angers city and other surrounding towns started to reduce the weekly number of waste collects. Apparently, these pile up inside the buildings and on the pavements.

For more and more observers, that phenomena has to do with general offhand manners : incivilities, nocturnal disturbances, the Angers mayor, Frédéric Beatse, could have to prevent and to punish.If the education of people may be at issue, the trafics are also responsible of the climate. That generates a distrust from store owners, customers, and inhabitants towards the core of the city, the Angers representatives should closely consider.

Front sides along Foch boulevard and the municipal polls to come

The wall along Foch boulevard

The Conseil général de Maine-et-Loire has recently diplayed on the wall located along the Foch boulevard panels about the Foch Activities centre project. The interest of the scheme is double, explains the president of the Maine-et-Loire authority, Christophe Béchu. The first consists in "gathering in an unique place several services presently scattered throughout Angers and therefore rationalising our functioning". The second is "to revitalize Angers down town. When the city sets up a tramway which costs 30 millions €/km, it's our responsibility not to let that equipment to go along an obstructed wall of 100 m long", explains the president on the website of the Conseil général.

The gardens of the Conseil général

In the weeks to come, the Conseil général de Maine-et-Loire is going to demolish a building located on Saint Aubin square. After the disappearance of that building and archeological digs, the construction of the scheme will start in spring 2014. A new building along Foch boulevard will host the services of the Conseil général and, at the ground floor, several stores with front sides along the trolley line.

Chr. Béchu

Chance of the calendar, the start of the works is planned just after the municipal polls. So the panels along Foch boulevard could also be interpreted as the involvment of Mr. Béchu in the competition face to Frédéric Béatse, the present Angers mayor or his contender, Jean-Luc Rotureau, presently deputy-mayor in charge of housing. If the issue is to make more dynamic the Angers down town with new front sides, these might as well open on Sundays. (Credit Pictures : Conseil général de Maine-et-Loire)

Economic difficulties in the commercial core of Angers may anticipate troubles for the retail trade

The last demonstrations of Angers store owners against the project of pavement tax finally withdrawn and the implementation of car parks increases may hide more deep and worrying problems. Is the down town retail trade in good health? That is not sure. An indication about that difficulties could be the the admission of the new Café de France located at the core of the city, on Ralliement square, into a receivership procedure for six months.

Opened on April 2011 at the end of the tramway works in the place of a travel agency, the Café de France would not have reached the necessary turnover and would lack cash. But, in such a crowdy place, if a café does not run well, where it will? In neighbouring streets, some front sides indicate "for sale". That's the case for three of them in Saint-Laud street, while another one is visible in Lenepveu street, the two ways being pedestrian...

The attractiveness of Angers down town has not, apparently, be restored by the tramway. On some real-estate agencies, rents of some flats have to be discounted in order to find lesees. And the depressive economic climate could turn political. One of the opposition town councillors, Emmanuel Capus, has asked to the mayor to cancel the car parks fares.

Technicolor gives tongue in front of a scarce public

The people, and the medias, waiting for the French minister in charge of the numerical economy were may be more numerous than those who watched the choir of some Tecnicolor employees singing in Ralliement square on Friday. At the beginning of the afternoon, few people paid attention to the sad tunes that employees wearing a white coat sang on the stairs of the Grand Théâtre...

Fleur Pellerin and the Angers mayor (Credit : Angers city)

But the good news is finally the minister, fleur Pellerin, came and delivered to the employees a kind of support. "We are, like the local authorities, mobilized to find a solution for Technicolor", said Mrs Pellerin. Such a solution could be a takeover by the Angers Oleane group of the factory but only 80 persons would be hired. She said that a one year of workload had been got from France Telecom. 

But the minister talked about something which looks incredible. "We have also some difficulties to get in touch with Technicolor", she said before to bring a charge against that group "which denies to accept its social duties", forgetting Technicolor was not the author of the reduction of the work time law which made since 15 years uncompetitive hundreds of French industrial companies and, consecuently, thousands of workers. That was precisely what a trade union leader said explaining the factory price (120 €) of a decoder was above the price paid for the item.

The inauguration of the new building of the Ecole supérieure d'électronique de l'Ouest, in the Saint-Aubin district, was an opportunity for Angers representatives to recall the tremedous importance of the electronic sector for the city. "The Eseo will be the first stone of a campus of excellence", they said. And useful to reclassify all who have been or will be laid off.

Angers Technicolor : the hope of a takeover by a local group remains

Hope has not totally vanished for (some of) the Technicolor employees. The Eolane group, which didn't submitted an offer to takeover the Angers factory before the deadline on October 1st, could finally do so before the audience of the Nanterre bankcruptcy court on October 11th. The plan of the Eolane chairman, Paul Raguin, consists in a production of photovoltaics panels by 80 persons. According to Angers medias and even the local trade unions, this is the ultimate hope. 

The Angers ad to support the local elctronic

Chance of the calendar, it is said that the filing of the Eolane project would take place on tomorrow, Friday, the same day of the visit in Angers of the French minister of numerical economy, Fleur Pellerin. Mrs Pellerin comes to Angers because the Ecole supérieure d'électronique de l'Ouest (Eseo) inaugurates that day during the afternoon its new building located in the Saint-Aubin district. 

Fleur Pellerin

It is not said in the local medias that the minister will pay the Technicolor employees a call. What, moreover, doesn't chock the observers... After the difficult period the employees lived through since several month, it would be fair for Mrs Pellerin to do so. The absence that day of a minister in charge of economy at the Technicolor factory would demonstrate that French politicians who talk don't act while managers who act don't talk...

The Angers store owners demand to open on Sundays during end of year holidays

The next demonstration the Angers store owners planned for next Friday will give to a old issue an opportunity to resurface : the opening of stores on Sundays. Of course, only a few Sundays have been targeted by store owners : those inside the end of the year holidays. And they recently pointed out a contradiction in the present stance of local authorities regarding the Sundays. 

While most of the representatives of Angers city claim the Sunday must stay a no-working day and must be dedicated to family life and rest, the same representatives agree to rent, on Sundays, places located in down town as well as surfaces in the Angers Parc Expo where, as recently in the Salon de l'habitat et de l'immobilier, business is running.

How the Angers representatives can deny to a store owner to open on Sunday during Christmas period while, at the same time, can rent a place for wooden huts to other retailers? The contradiction becomes more acute with the need, in Angers as in France in general, to let people resting or working just as they like because activity genererates growth which generates jobs. And Angers desperately needs jobs...

On a more temporary mood, down town store owners will demand (with good reason) that car parks fares be reconsidered. After the difficult times due the trolley works which ended about 14 months ago, the opening of the Atoll commercial park who could enlarge its offer of shops and where car parks are free, after the fear due to the pavement tax project recently withdrawn, the rise of car parks fares is the straw that broke the camel's back. 

If some inhabitants feel they are also the cash-cows of the city, it's unlikely that they will demonstrate on Friday because they work on that day. On Saturday, they could demonstrate by not the store owners because they work. All should demonstrate on Sunday, the Angers down down would be more lively! (Credit Pictures : Angers city and Sara)

Angers Technicolor close to closure

On October 1st, nobody had submitted an offer to take over the Technicolor factory of Angers. Without any way of pursuit of the activity, the Nanterre bankcruptcy court should, alas, decide the closure of the factory and the loss of of their jobs for 350 employees. Eolane, an Angers company which was mentionned as a candidate for a partial takeover of the factory with about 80 persons finally no submitted an offer.

According to some trade-unions responsibles, there is still a hope till October 11th, day of a decision of the Nanterre court. The Angers Technicolor factory is the last factory producing telecomunications items and audiovisual equipments the Technicolor group still owns in Europe. In 2011, it lost an important contract about decoders for France Telecom in which the French state has about 27% of the capital, others belong to private stockholders.

A few weeks ago, the new prime minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault told "we are not going to give up the employees in spite of the fact [the former government ]has let spoiled the situation too much time". A few weeks before, the Angers company attracted some interest during the electoral campaign. For the city, with Technicolor, a symbol of the industralization of would close (it was set up in the town in 1957). It would be neverthelesse hopeful that this (new) shock be a opportunity for Angers representatives and inhabitants to think about the loss of competitivity of the territory.

The Angers inhabitants waited in the next "districts meetings"

The "partici-pative democracy" Angers promotes since 2011 is on the way back. From October 10th, the second edition of the annual gathering of Angers districts will start. These public meetings in the ten districts of Angers are designed to give to the inhabitants an opportunity to express ideas and describe experiences about the life of their close environment. In 2011, more than a thousand people participated.

All the daily aspects of life in these districts can be discussed : "transports, urbanism, place for youth" are some of the points quoted by the city. It seems these meetings are also an opporunity for Angers representatives to stay in touch with inhabitants. "We need you to make the public action more efficient and to take up challenges facing the city", says the Angers mayor.This one and his deputy mayor in charge of each district will take part to these conferences organized - most of them but not all - on the evenings.

Apparently vague, the association of citizens to the choices which concern them is in fact precisely organized. Every person may be candidate to a workshop on specific issues. Some of them may even join the district councils. All that work could later be very useful when municipal polls will take place in 2014. But, who is going to complain?