The North Moselle slaughterhouse is on a razor’s edge. This project, which should serve the dynamics of short supply chains and 170 breeders in northern Lorraine, has today been abandoned by the banks. Last June, the president of the Collective Interest Cooperative Society (Scic) announced the bad news: after three years of monitoring, Crédit Agricole, Banque Populaire and Caisse d’Epargne had suddenly changed their tone. The twelve months of delay on the initial schedule do not explain everything: “We were made to understand that financing a tool like a slaughterhouse was no longer in the spirit of the times! », fumes Norbert Handrick, himself a sheep breeder in Rettel. “It’s a doctrinaire position, that’s all! », Adds Jean-Charles Louis, administrator of the Scic. The attempt to approach a new banking organization this summer did not produce a better result.
Now, the question is who to turn to to finance the 2.468 million euros (M€) needed to complete the construction budget for the slaughterhouse. The matter is delicate: due to lack of money, the project can no longer move forward. But abandoning everything at this stage of progress would be suicidal. Firstly because the story has lasted too long (the project has been pending since 2011); then because local authorities have made the maximum commitment to financing. Finally, regional and European subsidies have been acquired and the access work to the selected site, just outside Thionville, has already been carried out.
An extraordinary general meeting is convened Thursday October 5 in Thionville to assess the situation. “We will have to decide, if only to know what to say to the project manager,” says Norbert Handrick. The breeder is not upset: “If we abandon everything, then we will not be able to meet the territorial food plans. This is catastrophic for the livestock industry! »
Stop or still?
For a week, the hypothesis of a dissolution of the Scic has piqued certain partners, aware that a multi-species slaughterhouse participates in regional planning and enhances the local economy. The presidents of the communities of communes with a rural accent (Arc Mosellan, Cattenom, Bouzonvillois) do not seem ready to hear about dissolution so quickly but time is running out to imagine a solution. In the farming world, opinions are divided: all those who counted on the Thionville slaughterhouse remain hungry. Some have found a troubleshooting solution in Germany; the others continue to go to Sarrebourg or Verdun. Not next door, when you think about it.
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