By Matthew Dalton
AMIENS, France--French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron is
one of this industrial city's most famous natives. But when
Whirlpool Corp. said it would shut its factory here and move
production to Poland, it was one of his rivals, far-right
nationalist Marine Le Pen, who grabbed the spotlight.
Ms. Le Pen excoriated the American appliance maker and pledged a
35% tax on imports from Whirlpool and other companies that shift
manufacturing outside France. "We can no longer accept this massive
deindustrialization," she said in a video message to workers.
With days to go before the start of France's presidential
elections, Ms. Le Pen's antiestablishment and euroskeptic message
is resonating with voters here and in other struggling industrial
cities, where years of declining fortunes have fueled deep anger
with the country's political elite and the European Union.
"We need someone to defend us workers," says Gilles Jourdain,
who started at the Whirlpool factory 39 years ago. "I have never
voted Le Pen, but why not?"
Public-opinion surveys show Ms. Le Pen, leader of the National
Front, running neck-and-neck with Mr. Macron for the lead in a
field of 11 candidates competing in Sunday's first round. The
mainstream conservative, François Fillon, and far-left politician
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, are close behind.
The top two finishers will face off in a second vote in May.
Polls indicate that Ms. Le Pen would lose to Mr. Macron, Mr. Fillon
or Mr. Mélenchon in that final round.
Whether she wins or not, the strength of Ms. Le Pen's following
shows she has built a potent political force in rural and
industrial areas to challenge the French establishment in the years
ahead.
France's blue-collar regions are a major weak point for Mr.
Macron and the country's other mainstream candidates. An April poll
by survey firm Elabe found that in the election's first round, 48%
of factory workers would vote for Ms. Le Pen, compared with 16% for
Mr. Macron.
Around Amiens, factory jobs have been steadily draining away for
years. In 2014, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. closed up shop,
idling more than 1,000 workers. Now, Whirlpool is moving on, too,
to an EU country with lower wages.
Mr. Macron's response to France's economic woes has been a vocal
defense of trade as well as the EU and its common market. The
campaign platform of the 39-year-old former investment banker says
the "causes of deindustrialization are to be found at home and not
in globalization."
A former economy minister, Mr. Macron says he wants to shake up
France's rigid labor market, making it easier for companies to hire
and fire workers, cut corporate taxes and invest in research and
development to make manufacturers more competitive.
Ms. Le Pen's National Front has argued that only ditching the
euro and going back to the French franc can revive French industry.
A modest devaluation of the new currency would help France regain
the cost competitiveness it lost to Germany over the past decade,
when Berlin's labor-market overhauls kept wages growing far more
slowly than in the rest of the eurozone, party officials have said.
The move, combined with the threat of punitive import tariffs,
would stem France's industrial losses to Germany and Eastern
Europe, they say.
Mr. Macron--who grew up the son of doctors in Amiens before
leaving at age 16 for elite schools in Paris--has been reluctant to
weigh in on the looming Whirlpool plant closure. In a television
interview, he said: "What will I do? I'll go in a truck and say,
'With me, it won't close?' We know that it's not true."
Mr. Macron also urged Whirlpool to find a buyer for the factory
so the workers don't lose their jobs.
The candidate says he discovered his "civic conscience" in
Amiens. But his plans ring hollow here and in industrial
communities across France. Since the country began using the euro
in 1999, industrial production has fallen 10%. In Germany, it is
32% higher.
France's industrial losses have often come from production
shifting to the eastern half of the EU, where labor costs are a
fraction of what they are in France. Industrial output in Poland,
which is in the EU but doesn't use the euro, has more than doubled
since the start of the common currency.
"Europe was a mistake, a very big mistake," says Delphine
Voisin, a forklift driver who has worked at the Whirlpool plant for
27 years. Ms. Voisin said she is considering voting for Ms. Le
Pen.
In her videotaped message to Whirlpool workers, Ms. Le Pen said:
"We must break with this ultraliberal model that has been imposed
on us by our leaders for years."
When Stéphane Demory, a wiry 47-year-old, got his permanent job
at the Goodyear plant near Amiens in 2001, he says he thought he
would be employed for life. In 2014, however, the Akron, Ohio-based
company shut the massive plant, saying it was too costly compared
with operations in Germany and Eastern Europe.
Workers held two Goodyear executives hostage at the factory for
30 hours to negotiate bigger payouts for those losing their
jobs.
For Mr. Demory, who was laid off, the episode revived bad
memories. Mr. Demory's father lost his job when local manufacturing
giant Saint Frères retrenched in the 1980s, throwing the economy
into turmoil.
Mr. Demory's marriage fell apart as the Goodyear plant closed.
After sending résumés to more than 100 employers, he is still
looking for work.
He blames current French President François Hollande and Mr.
Macron, his aide at the time, for not preventing the closure.
"Everyone says you have to go with the Socialist Party, you have
to go with the right," Mr. Demory says. "I'd like Marine Le Pen for
one time. What will it cost? Nothing. Five years."
Others in Amiens say they can't support Ms. Le Pen's tough
anti-immigration message. "National Front, it's racism, pure and
simple, " says Didier Hérisson, a former union leader at the
Goodyear plant. He says he'll vote for the far-left Mr. Mélenchon,
who wants to renegotiate the terms of European Union treaties.
At the Whirlpool plant, the company, labor unions and the French
authorities are trying to find a buyer for the factory, something
that could save jobs. That process is required under a law passed
by the Hollande government.
Whirlpool decided to shut the plant because it has been losing
money for years, a spokesman said. The company is working hard to
find a buyer for the factory, he said.
Phillippe Theveniaud, a labor leader and local official, says
that if a mainstream candidate like Mr. Macron is elected and
nothing is done to help workers in places like Amiens, Ms. Le Pen
and the National Front will be even stronger in the next
elections.
"National Front won't have 30%, but 60% next time," Mr.
Theveniaud said. "People will say, 'We are tricked again. He
proposes nothing new. It's the same thing.'"
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 20, 2017 05:44 ET (09:44 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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