"We have not entered into a battle but a war," Gaëtan Lecoq of the CGT ArcelorMittal union

In the Plaine Saint-Denis district, several hundred employees from various ArcelorMittal sites mobilized on Tuesday, May 13, to put pressure on the steelmaker's management, which is considering cutting more than 600 jobs.

"Nationalization" was the term on everyone's lips: "the Italians did it, the English did it (...) so why aren't we French capable of doing it?" asked Gaétan Lecocq, of the CGT union at ArcelorMittal Dunkerque , the site most threatened by the job cuts plan.

"This company receives 295 million euros of public money every year and was supposed to lead a group decarbonization project, so we need to ask Mittal whether or not he's going to invest. In 2006, there were 22 blast furnaces in Europe; today, there are only eleven left," warns Fabien Gay, a Communist senator.

At the heart of maintaining a steel industry in France is whether or not the group will pursue its decarbonization projects. At the end of 2024, ArcelorMittal suspended its final investment decision—amounting to €1.8 billion, including more than €800 million in state aid promised—to decarbonize its Dunkirk blast furnaces, arguing that steel produced in Europe is uncompetitive.

CGT General Secretary Sophie Binet, who came to support the struggling workers, promised that the situation of ArcelorMittal workers would be "at the center" of her "questioning of the President of the Republic," with whom she has been invited to debate this Tuesday evening on TF1, among other personalities. "I will give him the CGT's proposals for nationalization, the list of 400 layoff plans that are currently taking place throughout France, with companies that receive public aid and distribute dividends, and I will tell him that he must take responsibility," she proclaimed in front of the employees of Dunkirk (Nord), Florange (Moselle), and Basse-Indre (Loire-Atlantique), three of the most affected sites. She then sang, between two firecrackers, a popular slogan: "Metal without Mittal! Metal without Mittal!"