Update: SeaFrance decision delayed
Workers get extra time to evaluate Sarkozy offer to help fund cooperative buy-out bid
A PARIS commercial court has delayed a decision on the future of troubled cross-Channel ferry firm SeaFrance to get more information on the government's offer to help a worker buy-out.
SeaFrance, which lost €240 million in 2010, has been in administration since the middle of November and its ferries have been tied up at Calais since then. A buy-out bid by the Scop workers cooperative is the only offer on the table for the company after a DFDS Seaways and LD Lines consortium pulled out.
Now the Scop has been given extra time to work out what President Sarkozy's last-minute intervention will mean in financial terms. The next hearing of the commercial court has been set for January 9.
Transport Minister Thierry Mariani derided the Scop offer as a "fantasy" last week but his boss, Ecology Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, yesterday stepped in after Sarkozy used his New Year message to call on employers to "do everything possible" to maintain jobs in the face of recession and increasing unemployment.
Kosciusko-Morizet revealed after a surprise meeting at the Elysée that the state would help fund the Scop proposal, which was said to be €50m short of what was needed to keep SeaFrance in business.
Money that would be otherwise be paid out to compensate redundancies is a major part of the funding proposal and Sarkozy has said that state-owned SNCF, which is 100% owner of SeaFrance, should also come up with exceptional aid for the workers.
However, union sources have reacted strongly against the lack of direct state involvement with some saying that it was unlikely that all the workers would want their redundancy money used to fund the new business.
Rival ferry firm P&O has also attacked plans for state aid for SeaFrance and said it would lodge a protest with the European Union authorities.
The SeaFrance move comes as the government also revealed that increased aid would be given to the car industry which saw sales tumbling by up to 29% after the end of the prime à la casse car scrappage scheme.
Unemployment is approaching 10% just four months before the presidential election and Industry Minister Eric Besson said a "second generation" support scheme would be set up to replace the scrappage allowance.
