Closing Moulinex: Thoughts on the Visibility and Invisibility of Industrial Labour in Contemporary France

Abstract

This article explores some of the ways in which deindustrialisation and factory closures are figured in contemporary French cultural production. In doing so, it reflects on the visibility and invisibility of industrial workers and their work in representations of the social world. Having noted a significant preoccupation with these issues in French cultural production since the 1990s, the discussion focuses particularly on the closure of the well-known domestic appliance company, Moulinex, in September 2001. It contrasts the dominant media discourse on industrial closures with the literary narrative offered by Franck Magloire (son of a Moulinex worker) in Ouvrière (2003).

Cet article considère certains aspects de la représentation de la désindustrialisation et des fermetures d'usine dans la production culturelle française contemporaine. Il présente ainsi une réflexion sur la visibilité et l'invisibilité des ouvriers et du travail industriel dans la représentation du monde social. Partant du constat que ces questions constituent une préoccupation importante dans la production culturelle française depuis les années 1990, l'analyse est centrée plus particulièrement sur le cas de la fermeture du célèbre fabricant du petit électroménager, Moulinex, en Septembre 2001. Elle fait ressortir le contraste entre le discours médiatique dominant sur les fermetures industrielles et le récit littéraire proposé par Franck Magloire (fils d'une ouvrière de Moulinex) dans Ouvrière (2003).

Notes

 [1] 2898 Moulinex employees were made redundant but there were also related job losses in firms that worked as sub-contractors for Moulinex. The total number of jobs lost in the region as a result of the Moulinex closures has been put at 3527. See Roupnel-Fuentes (2011, p. 22).

 [2] In both cases, the companies had gone into liquidation and the workers were seeking payments beyond the legal minimum.

 [3] An earlier reflection on the changes underway in the world of industrial workers can be found Azémar (1992).

 [4] This figure and that cited subsequently for employment in the agricultural sector are for 2007, which are the latest data available at present from INSEE at http://www.insee.fr/fr/themes/tableau.asp?reg_id = 98&ref_id = CMPTEF03136.

 [5] See http://www.insee.fr/fr/themes/tableau.asp?reg_id = 0&ref_id = NATnon03173 for figures on employment by socio-professional category and http://www.insee.fr/fr/themes/tableau.asp?reg_id = 0&ref_id = NATASF03362 for figures on unemployment.

 [6] I discuss this in more detail in a forthcoming article provisionally titled ‘Cultures of Production and Cultures of Consumption in Postwar Provincial France: Moulinex and the Meanings of Domestic Appliances 1950s–1970s’.

 [7] The exception is a section in the Annual Report for 1982 which reproduces some of the company's recent advertising campaigns from different countries, emphasising its international commercial presence. Archives départementales du Calvados, 2003 JP 894 2.

 [8] Annual Report 1979, pp. 2–3. Archives départementales du Calvados, 2003 JP 894 2.

 [9] Martin O'Shaughnessy has noted a related tendency in French cinema, in what he sees as films that register the defeat and fragmentation of the working class. The new political cinema that he identifies (O'Shaughnessy 2007) is defined by its attempts to move beyond the narrative of defeat and articulate an aesthetic and a politics for the new landscape.

[10] Details of the agreement between Mme Badet and the Société d'études et d'exploitation chimique et mécanique, which traded under the Légumex name, can be found in Archives départementales du Calvados, 2003 JP 1058 2168.

[11] Pierre Blayau, who left the company with a golden handshake of nine million francs in 2000, was charged with the misuse of funds leading to bankruptcy (the offences of ‘banqueroute par détournement d'actifs’ and ‘banqueroute par emploi de moyens ruineux’) but the case against him was dropped in January 2011. At the time of writing, Patrick Puy and two of his senior financial managers are still being prosecuted for misuse of corporate assets (abus de biens sociaux) and false accounting (http://basse-normandie.france3.fr/info/thierry-le-paon-charge-les-banques-66927900.html). There has also been pressure from the prosecuting authorities in Nanterre for charges to be brought against key figures at the Société générale and the Crédit Lyonnais, which were banques conseil for Moulinex and sat on its board (http://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2011/01/14/affaire-moulinex-mises-en-examen-requises-a-la-societe-generale-et-au-credit-lyonnais_1465906_3234.html).

[12] This text appears on the back cover of the Livre de poche edition.

[13] The text dates the closure to 1997 but it was actually 1993.

[14] Membership figures given to me by Maguy Lalizel, President of Apic Mx in June 2010. On the associations, efforts to keep the criminal case in the public eye see http://www.apicmx.com/pages/index.php and Daniel Mermet's radio programme Là-bas si j'y suis on France Inter, 14 and 15 April 2011.