The young welder was 23 when he joined Moulinex in 1983. He remained there for twenty years, until bankruptcy on September 7, 2001. In a book From one world to another (1), which comes out on September 11, Thierry lepaon, Secretary General of the CGT from 2013 to 2015, tells Moulinex: the birth, its products, its employees “ a big family “, the golden age and the end.
“Nine out of ten families have had a Moulinex”
From one world to another because when the board of directors announces to him in a tower of Defense in Nanterre that, without buyer, Moulinex will close leaving 8,000 employees on the floor, in New York the towers of World Trade center collapsed. “Comparison is not right and it is not the same drama. But I make the link between two worlds which are collapsing at the same time in New York and industrial in Normandy. “
“I was very attached to this industrial group”
He goes back to it several times, “I wanted to write it for the ten years, the fifteen years. The pill was still difficult to swallow. I was very attached to this industrial group. ” He collects his memories, conducts research in the archives to tell what Moulinex was through his products, “In France nine out of ten families have had or still have a Moulinex device. There is no equivalent. “
Thierry Lepaon portrays Jean Mantelet, the founder, who has held the helm for more than 60 years, in a few features “Innovation, perspective, massification, independence. With a paternalistic and authoritarian side, but loved by his staff who could not say no to him. “ He multiplied the factories – thirteen -, “So as not to have an industrial monster. Divide and rule. He was creating a factory for the product unlike today ”. The old boss “Had no heir and did not imagine his succession. “
Until the fall on September 11, 2001, ” a massacre. The biggest bankruptcy since Boussac. The staff were elderly, unqualified, poorly qualified, not very mobile, 60% female… Few have found a job. There were a lot of couples among the employees. “
If he is not tender with the three executives that Mantelet ended up appointing as his successors, the various departments, restructurings and financial investors who could not save the company, the bankers or Brandt who, “By merging with Moulinex has failed to build a European household appliance industry,”Thierry Lepaon also points to the responsibility of the State “And its lack of industrial strategy. We can see the result twenty years later with the pandemic: deindustrialisation has led to everything being manufactured elsewhere and to being dependent on it. “
(1) Editions Ouest-France, Publishing Ouest-France, 192 pages, € 15.90, available from September 10.
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