The dilemma of public assistance à the recovery d’business

This is one of the unknowns of the recovery of the site of the Ford Blanquefort. The State and the local authorities should they return to the pot, at the risk of losing everything, to support the recovery of the site by Punch Powerglide ? Monday, October 15, Bruno Le Maire, the minister of the economy, has indicated the intention of the State to mobilize 5 million euros to support the reindustrialization of the site, while local authorities are ready to invest 12.5 million euros.

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But if everything stops, that Ford turns the key in the door to Blanquefort, what will happen ? The manufacturer may be required to reimburse the resources allocated by the government between 2011 and 2013 to maintain, already, the activity of the factory ? At the time, State, region, department and communes of the agglomeration had mobilized 15 million euros to participate in the modernization of the site and to ensure that, during five years, the maintenance of a thousand posts. “As the commitments were required, namely, the retention of positions over the planned period, this money can not be claimed,” says one at Bercy.

each announcement of factory closures, departures, the reaction is still the same in the politicians. They require the reimbursement of public aid they received.

The sinister episode Daewoo

All of which still retain in memory the episode Daewoo, of sinister memory. After having received close to fifty million euros of public support in the 1980s and 1990s to revitalize the Lorraine, the conglomerate had decided to close in 2003, its three plants, eliminating the passage of 1, 200 jobs. All without ever paying a penny to the government, leaving the slate tax is substantial.

Much more recently, the member of parliament Olivier Falorni asked, in 2015, the reimbursement of the research tax credit affected by the equipment manufacturer Delphi, which was closing its site in Périgny, near La Rochelle. Without success. Similarly, during the presidential campaign of 2017, the socialist candidate, Benoît Hamon had requested the reimbursement by Whirlpool, which announced then the closure of its site at Amiens, the tax credit competitive employment (CICE). There also, without success, because the tax credits are not subject to a commitment to keep the tool working in France.

But the State is not all the same not poor. Since 2015, the law Florange, passed at the initiative of Arnaud Montebourg, minister of productive recovery, provides that any business brought to close a facility in France is obliged not only to seek a buyer, but also, if the warden asks for a refund ” of the cash grants in the field of installation, economic development, research or job assigned by a public person to the company “.

by the End of 2017, the State has asked the u.s. group Caterpillar to repay the approximately 125, 000 euros for public assistance (premium of the land development fund revitalization) after the announcement of the closure of its plant in Arras, and the deletion of 67 posts… A lesser evil.

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