In the 1960s and 1970s, Revin had more jobs than inhabitants.We came from afar to work in one of the 27 foundries or at Arthur Martin, Faure then Electrolux, all installed in this small town of the Ardennes located a handful of kilometers from the Belgian border.It was the blessed time when workers could negotiate their salary.Then globalization, here as elsewhere, did its office.
Delocalizations, job discounts, layoffs, factories that no start-up has replaced ... The unemployment rate jumped (it is 27% today, compared to 8% in France and 9.5% across the department).In fifty years, the revin population increased from 12,500 inhabitants to 6,000 today."No one wants to come here anymore, laments Marie Gippon, insertion in charge of insertion. We close everything ..." Even the leader Price recently put the key under the door.
During the winter of 2021, two good souls looked at the sad fate of the Meuse valley.The first one?Jean-Marc Seghezzi.A French businessman, president of the company Starship Investments (installed in Luxembourg) and owner of the Mercier brand since 2000. The famous Cycles of Raymond Poulidor, Antonin Magne, Louison Bobet, Cyrille Guimard, Joop Zoetemelk… Founded in Saint-SaintÉtienne, the brand knew its heyday before, like Revin, to decline.
On February 1, Jean-Marc Seghezzi announces that he is relaunching Mercier in Revin
The company finally closed its doors in 1985. On February 1, the Ardennes were celebrating: Jean-Marc Seghezzi announces that it revives the brand, in France, in Revin.The cycles, not the outfits and equipment, still held by the Mercier family, who specifies that she has nothing to do with him."Two hundred and seventy jobs in sight", title L'Ardennais, the local newspaper.The place of establishment of the factory is already chosen: the Friche Porcher, where baths, taps and ceramics were made.Over 60,000 square meters."This installation is a wonderful news, is delighted Daniel Durbecq, the mayor (various right) of the city. No, the industry is not dead in the Ardennes, and the installation of the Mercier cycles proves it!"
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An SME occupies the site?Its leader is forced to move.The costs, such as the renovation of its new headquarters, are covered by local communities.Amount: 1.15 million euros.Nothing is too good for Mercier and his 270 jobs which, everyone is convinced, will generate hundreds of others: subcontractors, SMEs, shops, restaurants that will reopen, schools thatwill not close."We have the assurance that if the workforce goes back, as could be the case in Revin, the classes will reopen," said Jacqueline Gourault, Minister of Territorial Cohesion last March.
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She is the second good fairy of a tale that will soon be fired in the nightmare.On March 15, in the company of Seghezzi, she visited the site, where production should have started these days.She poses in front of a row of bikes and posters to the glory of the brand, launching: "Mercier cycles are the very example of reindustrialisation turned towards the future that occupies us!"
It announces a first implantation assistance envelope, 800,000 euros from the revival plan for the department decided by the government."A first check after all modest which calls others, the amount of which could this time rise to six zeros, writes the local press. The overall investment is estimated at 11.6 millioneuros. "The prefect, Jean-Sébastien Lamontagne, specifies that "7 million euros were asked".Jean-Marc Seghezzi must pay 2.4 million euros in his pocket.
A fiasco without explanation
He is there, in the photo, alongside the minister, the presidents of the region and the department, the prefect, the deputies and the mayors of the surroundings.A miracle, you are told.A mirage, rather.Four and a half months later, on July 31, the prefect, the trembling voice of Rage, was charged by the Ministry of Economy and Finance to announce to elected officials the terrible news: the Mercier factory will not see the light of day.
The sky falls on the head of Revin and its region."We all believed it, everyone was talking about it, remembers Freddy Collet, who presides over the AREL, a mutual aid association installed in the old town. It would have finally created a dynamic, people would have come out of their home,It would have done good to youth, to shops, it would have been like a bubble of happiness. And then the bubble exploded and people not only do not understand but are disgusted. Disappointment is up to hope aroused. "
Installed in the mayor's office in which sits a portrait of Raymond Poulidor, Mercier Cap Vissée on the skull, the first deputy, Jean Guion, sighs: "It is a drama. The site was to be called Poulidor, the family was D'Agreement. We applied to pass the Tour de France in 2023. The city was going to relive. And here it is ... forgive me to say it like that: we were fucked. "
The mayor, the deputies, Jean Rottner, president (LR) of the powerful Grand-Est region, catch their phone and require explanations.The prefect, again, is responsible for providing a first: "State services have noted facts serious enough to consider in responsibility that it is not possible to engage public money."
Which?Almost six months after the fiasco announcement, no one got an answer."All these people, in the ministries, they do not care about us, accuses Jean Guion. No one answers us. They say: 'It seems that ...' If we were explained the why of how, wewould do a reason. But there, it's like impossible mourning. "
Pierre Cordier, deputy (related LR) of the second district of the Ardennes, end of anger: "I have been asking for an appointment from the Minister of Industry, Ms. Pannier-Runacher.mouth! I do not give a damn about their bogus explanations; I want to be told reality. In the Ardennes, we know the thug bosses well which buy command notebooks and which are barred with thepublic money. But there? How do I know? If the state has something to blame Mr. Seghezzi, to be demonstrated! "
His counterpart Jean-Luc Warsmann (LR) accused Agnès Pannier-Runacher (candidate for regional elections 2021 in Hauts-de-France) of having torpedoed the Mercier file in Revin to better set it up in Béthune (Pas-deCalais), which the Minister of Industry immediately denied.
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The shadow of the Panama Papers
"Believe that we have not made this decision lightly, answer various technical advisers member of his cabinet, interviewed by the JDD. Several surveys abroad and in France, diligent by customs and the national financial prosecutor's office,Take Mr. Seghezzi. We are talking about very serious facts which could not allow us to associate it with this project. "Which?Mystery.
If not this instruction, open since 2016, known to all the actors in the file: a preliminary survey for tax fraud.According to the Ministry of Economy and Finance, Seghezzi is suspected of having circumvented anti -dumping customs duties concerning bikes from China by making believe that they came from Sri Lanka, which he denies.
Solicited by the JDD, also claims to claim an appointment in Bercy to obtain explanations."No one ever answers me. It's a crazy story!"According to the ministry, "the products of these frauds have been laundered by networks of offshore companies belonging to the project leader".
But then, why did you organize under the aegis of the prefect, therefore of the State, meetings with him in the fall of 2020?Why this visit on site, on March 15, by Jacqueline Gourault?The mayor of Revin, Daniel Durbecq, strangled on September 24 in front of a camera from France 3: "It was as if she laid the first stone. She said that she wanted to be the first to buy a bike that would come outOf these chains. What is extraordinary in this case is that this Seghezzi gentleman is the state that presented it to us by telling us that it was going to help us. "
The cabinet of Agnès Pannier-Runacher returns the fault on Jacqueline Gourault
His name, however, appears on several occasions in offshore Leaks Database, the database established by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) as part of the Panama Papers, the largest tax evasion scandal in history.Seghezzi is cited as "beneficiary" with China Fine Sports Limited (closed in April 2015) and as "shareholder" (from July 2011 to November 2012) from Ocean Free Technology Limited.
Two companies mentioned in the case, recorded in the tax haven of the British Virgin Islands and whose "agent", according to the database, is Mossack Fonseca, the offshore firm in the heart of the Panama Papers.Since October 2020, its two founders, lawyers Jürgen Mossack and Ramón Fonseca, established in Panama, have been targeted by an international arrest warrant launched by German justice.
Jean-Marc Seghezzi assures "not knowing anything about this cabinet and never had the slightest link with him".Is this the heart of Revin fiasco?The fear that a scandal does not break out?Everything suggests it.The cabinet of Agnès Pannier-Runacher is content to return the fault on Jacqueline Gourault, whose arrival on the spot formalized, in the mind of all, the establishment of Mercier: "We can only regret this visit and this announcementQuite unhappy, knowing that the investigations already launched at that time were conclusive. "
The Minister of Territorial Cohesion would have decided, almost on a whim, to invite himself to Revin, leaving the services of Bercy who knew that investigations were aimed at Seghezzi."But then, replies the entourage of Jacqueline Gourault, why did they never tell us? No one has given up the slightest information on this gentleman. And do you really believe that the Minister was able to announce her-End, without having received the green light from Bercy, Matignon, the granting of 800,000 euros drawn from the Pact for the Ardennes decided by the government? "
And to recall that the project submitted by Jean-Marc Seghezzi had received a first downstream from Bpifrance, the public investment bank, with tax exemptions granted by ... the Ministry of the Economy and Finance.
"All this is a big government planning, summarizes an actor in the file very aware of the negotiations committed. Everyone wanted to believe it, but on the one hand it quickly turned out that the project was perhapsBeing not viable, and on the other hand, in Bercy, they were afraid to face a screen company. People are hired, production starts, but after a year or two does not work. TheGuy files for bankruptcy, pockets the millions of euros in grant and leaves with Luxembourg ... The state preferred to say stop before the disaster. But in reality, nothing should have been done upstream before we are sureof the buyer's profile. "
Cascade disappointments
Meanwhile, Revin and the Ardennes despair.Three years ago, the President of the Republic in person announced in Charleville-Mézières, the prefecture of the department, the establishment of the Cevital factory, supposed to make filters and stations to purify water.Another mirage: a thousand jobs promised by the CEO of the Algerian group, the billionaire Issad Rebrab ... imprisoned shortly after in his country before being released.
The factory will never open its doors."I have known everything here, warns Jacky Sarrazin, almost 80 years old, former deputy mayor, secretary of the Communist Party section. When I read '270 jobs' in the newspaper, I still told friends:'Let's wait and see.'But afterwards, like everyone else, I believed in it. And finally, we saw the result. People are disgusted, they want to vote Zemmour. It's desperate, they no longer believe in any way. "
In the spring, Pôle Emploi launched its pre -recruitment campaign for Mercier.We brought psychological tests to applicants.We have looked for frames, assembly, assembly, welders, painters, electricians ... Sylvie Debuiss, whose mother worked for forty years on the site of the Friche Porcher to make in particular garbage holders,is candidates for human resources."We were not worried, we were told that recruitment would start during the summer. But I never had the slightest news."
In Bercy, we assure having "definitively turned Mercier to Revin" page
Licensed three years ago, Nino Paderi, 57, also sends his CV.Of all his former colleagues from Electrolux, only two found a permanent contract.He works in temporary.Like everyone, Nino Paderi had seen on March 15 in the local newspaper and on France 3 the minister, the mayor, all elected officials congratulate themselves in the alleys of the factory with Jean-Marc Seghezzi."It was a real lever of hope. But the story is repeated again, all these people come, the ministers make great promises and after there is nothing at all."
Today, Seghezzi says he has not given up on his project.Here or more likely in Portugal, where he claims to have established contacts with the authorities.As for Revin's fiasco, the industrialist believes in a cabal against him orchestrated by a competitor or by the government, who would have realized that the sums to be investing would increase considerably."Sure, it smells like that."
In Bercy, we ensure that we have "definitively turned Mercier in Revin" while working so that other manufacturers settle in the wasteland."The sums allocated to Mercier have been sanctuarized, we explained this week. We do not want to give false hopes, but we have established fairly advanced contacts around industrial projects."
We will not know more, just like on the famous surveys that would target Jean-Marc Seghezzi."When they are finished, we will be able to reveal why we did not wish to get involved with him."New meetings must be held in the coming months.
Jean Rottner, the president of the Grand-Est region, posed conditions: "I said to the ministers and Matignon: 'Now we work seriously, neither in communication nor in confusion, but in silence for this territorywhich has resilient industry and real economic potential. 'I do not hide from you that I had quite virile explanations with Ms. Pannier-Runacher. Two ministers were involved in the file. We come, we make great promises, and then nothing? This affair is sorry. "He too said he had no idea of the real charges that weigh on Seghezzi.
Last fall, a small delegation of inhabitants was received in Paris, at the Ministry of Territorial Cohesion."They told us that they were catastrophies," reports one of them.The Ardennes have submitted ideas: developing rail freight, because here the railroads enters directly into factories;Find another industrialist specializing in cycling, a buoyant sector."We were told: 'You know, the file is complex but you are at the top of the pile'," recalls Jacky Sarrazin.Should it be specified?Here, no one believes in it.
