Sanofi cuts 1,700 jobs in Europe

news-single-imgcaption" style="width:240px;">Director Paul Hudson created the controversy over the possibility of favoring the United States for a vaccine against the coronavirus (Keystone)

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The French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi will cut 1,700 jobs in Europe, including 1,000 in France, a reorganization that corresponds to a “new strategy” according to Olivier Bogillot, the France president of the group, and not to a social plan linked to the consequences of Covid-19 .

This departure plan, which was presented to the European social partners on Friday morning, concerns a thousand of the 25,000 employees in France (out of 100,000 worldwide), said Olivier Bogillot.

In December, the group said it wanted to rationalize its spending, with a target of two billion euros in savings by 2022, in particular by stopping research in diabetes, one of its traditional core business, as well than in the cardiovascular.

The departure plan, which must be done in France “exclusively on a voluntary basis” and spread over three years, concerns positions “on permanent contracts for the most part, in particular” support, commercial functions and platforms related to research “, detailed Mr. Bogillot.

A meeting is scheduled for Monday to “unroll the strategic sheet” to the French social partners, he added, without specifying the compensation that would be offered to employees or the envelope provided to finance this departure window.

Will be concerned “certain sites in Ile-de-France on support functions, at the international headquarters on rue de la Boétie in Paris, at the Val de Bièvre campus (Val-de-Marne) or other places in France, but especially on our tertiary sites, “said President France. There will be no plant closings, said Sanofi.

Dividend raised

The laboratory posted a turnover in the first quarter of nearly 9 billion euros (9.6 billion francs), an increase of 6.9% due in half to the pandemic of Covid-19, during which its sales of painkillers have been boosted like Doliprane.

The group has planned to pay a dividend higher than that of the previous year to its shareholders, for a total amount of nearly 4 billion. Against the flow of many companies that have either reduced or canceled their dividend due to the health crisis.

With this new plan, “it is the continued dismantling of the group and the outsourcing of activities. Sanofi wants to move from a total of 300 drugs for sale to only a hundred. It seems that the group does not want keep what is most profitable, “said Thierry Bodin, CGT coordinator at Sanofi.

Sanofi, which is one of the main global players in the production of vaccines, is currently working on the development of two vaccines against Covid-19, expected during 2021. It announced in mid-June 610 million investments to boost its vaccines and create a new factory in France.

But it also created controversy last month when its chief executive Paul Hudson raised the possibility of favoring the United States, which has invested in its search for vaccines against the coronavirus. (AWP)

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