Angry employees held the governor and several executives of Credit Foncier inside the debt-laden French bank's headquarters for a second day on Saturday in protest at plans to wind it down, officials said.
Finance Minister Jean Arthuis, in a radio interview, harshly criticised the worker protest as counterproductive but the bank's governor seemed unperturbed by the occupation of his headquarters by several dozen employees. I find this to be a form of brutality which prevents us from going forward, which prevents us from building, Arthuis told France Inter radio.
But governor Jerome Meysonnier, looking relaxed and in fresh clothes despite his night in the bank, told reporters he was encouraged that talks between the government and employee representatives would restart soon.
The night went well. Everyone was on their best behaviour, Meysonnier said.
The workers are fighting a government plan to wind down the near bankrupt company and spin its housing loans business off to property credit group Credit Immobilier, a rescue package the state deems unavoidable.
The workers fear job losses at the 145-year-old bank, which currently has 3,300 employees. Arthuis pledged on Friday to keep in close contact with employees during discussion of the Credit Immobilier proposal. He added that the door was still open to competing offers and reassured the workers that the government hoped to both protect jobs and the interests of French taxpayers.
Union officials said Arthuis had agreed to meet protester representatives on Saturday afternoon. Meysonnier had told the demonstrators he believed that the bank could be kept alive as a going concern.Meyssonnier told us Credit Foncier is viable and there are solutions other than Credit Immobilier, he said. A bank official said this account was essentially correct.
Meyssonnier, appointed by the government, appears to be at odds with the Finance Ministry over the bank's future and recently predicted it could make a profit of a billion francs ($180 million) this year after the 10.8 billion ($2.0 billion)1995 loss which triggered the wind-down plan.
Arthuis said on Wednesday he would soon present legislation for the second stage of the plan to spin off Credit Foncier into a new state company, with its housing loans portfolio going to Credit Immobilier.
