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Workers revolt in France

Luc Rousselet, the director of 3M’s French operations, is allowed to walk out of his office at the Pithiviers plant south of Paris on Wednesday. Striking French 3M workers were still holding Rousselet hostage. Associated Press photos (Associated Press photos / The Spokesman-Review)
Luc Rousselet, the director of 3M’s French operations, is allowed to walk out of his office at the Pithiviers plant south of Paris on Wednesday. Striking French 3M workers were still holding Rousselet hostage. Associated Press photos (Associated Press photos / The Spokesman-Review)
Associated Press

PARIS – French workers burned tires, marched on the presidential palace and held a manager of U.S. manufacturer 3M hostage Wednesday as anger mounted over job cuts and executive bonuses.

Rising public outrage at employers on both sides of the Atlantic has been triggered by executives cashing in bonus checks even as their companies were kept afloat with billions of dollars in taxpayers’ money and unemployment soars.

As the U.S. administration seeks ways of recouping some of the $165 million in bonuses paid to executives at insurance giant American International Group Inc., kept afloat by $170 billion in taxpayer bailout money, French President Nicolas Sarkozy is threatening new laws on bonuses and golden parachutes.

Sarkozy is also trying to deflect anger against his government’s failure to ward off the job losses and economic hardship that comes with recession.

The $4.3 million exit bonus paid to the former head of Valeo SA, an auto parts maker that received state aid, has fueled outrage in France. Controversy also grew Wednesday over bonuses at brokerage company Cheuvreux, a unit of a French bank that got state handouts.

“The risks of repercussions of ill-feeling from employees and from a political backlash are real if execs continue to be compensated at pre-crisis levels,” said Cubillas Ding, a senior analyst at financial research firm Celent. “Bonus and pay cuts are now seen as the politically correct thing to do.”

Rising public outrage at employers has led to kidnappings, marches and strikes in France, a country with a long tradition of labor unrest.

A French 3M executive was being held hostage for the second day at a plant in Pithiviers, south of Paris, as workers protested layoffs. The situation was calm, however, with labor talks taking place there Wednesday.

Detained 3M manager Luc Rousselet told an Associated Press reporter that “Everything’s fine” and that workers planned to bring him mussels and French fries for dinner.

In Paris, rage boiled over into an angry march on the presidential palace and a bonfire of tires set alight by workers from Germany’s Continental AG, whose auto parts factory in Clairoix, northeast of Paris, plans to shut down in 2010.