Paris (France) (AFP) – The Minister of Industry, Sébastien Martin, on Thursday ruled out the option of nationalization, even temporary, of the Fiber Excellence pulp factory, based in Saint-Gaudens (Haute Garonne), the day after a call to this effect from the Occitanie region.
Published on: 09/03/2026 - 1:11 p.m.
For their part, in Saint-Gaudens, dozens of Fiber Excellence employees gathered Thursday in front of the factory, in the presence, among others, of the PS deputy Joël Aviragnet or the mayor of the city, Jean-Yves Duclos, to ask in particular President Emmanuel Macron to proceed by decree to a temporary nationalization, noted an AFP journalist.
The president of the Occitanie region, Carole Delga (PS), made this request on Wednesday through a "state participation to allow time for an industrial partnership to form", in the absence of an immediate solution to take over the factory.
“Nationalization, I'm not sure that it's the most relevant solution,” reacted the minister during the “4 V” interview on France 2, adding that “temporary means nothing.”
The region, which has already attracted, through the Regional Agency for Strategic Investments (ARIS), an Alsatian group, Soprema, to form a "consortium project" intended to restart the Saint-Gaudens factory, is asking for State participation in the amount of 15 million euros "while an industrialist can replace public actors".
The minister indicated that he had been looking for buyers "since January": "the Region started looking for buyers this summer, but ultimately, it contacted the same people that I had contacted in May, with the same results", he added, saying he was ready to "sit around the table" to discuss the future of the site.
“I have experience of what it is like for a territory that suffers an industrial accident,” added Mr. Martin, assuring that “we can always bounce back,” taking the example of his constituency of Chalon-sur-Saône where “nine factories came up,” a few years after the closure of the Kodak factory, which left “2,500 people behind.”
“It’s false, the government has done nothing” to find a buyer “and when we find one, it puts obstacles in our way,” retorted the PS deputy for Haute-Garonne, denouncing an “ideological position”.
“The employees are revolted by what they heard from the mouth of a minister. We have had reduced salaries since April and he is sweeping us aside,” reacted Nicolas Bruel, CGT representative of the factory.
“To save Fiber Excellence, temporary nationalization is today a necessity,” said Place Publique MEP Raphaël Glucksmann, candidate in the left-wing primary for the presidential election, on Thursday on
The leader of the socialist deputies, Boris Vallaud, announced on X the tabling of a bill to this effect.
Owned by the Indonesian paper maker Jackson Wijaya, the company Fiber Excellence, the last French producer of paper pulp, was placed in receivership in April. Its two factories, in Saint-Gaudens and Tarascon (Bouches-du-Rhône), were shut down.
On July 29, the Toulouse commercial court declared the liquidation of the Tarascon site, which employed 270 people.
The fate of the Saint-Gaudens factory, also with 270 employees, must be examined on September 8 by the commercial court.
© 2026 AFP
The content you are trying to access does not exist or is no longer available.
