The scene at the factory owned by Michelin — one of France’s most iconic industrial brands — is playing out across large swathes of Western Europe as its economy staggers under pressure from global competition, energy prices made higher by the war in Ukraine, and what some policymakers have described as suffocating red tape.
What’s more, the hundreds of billions of euros spent since the pandemic to keep factories open and jobs at home now seem to have been little more than a very expensive stopgap solution.
Europe’s economy is shriveling and bleeding jobs. Industrial production in the eurozone dropped 1.2 percent last year, continuing a trend that has seen the loss of more than 2.3 million jobs in the sector in the past 15 years, according to trade unions.
The fate of the workers in Cholet, one of two factories Michelin closed in France last year, illustrates a problem money may be unable to solve — just as the continent is bracing for another round of economic turmoil caused by tariffs expected to be imposed by United States President Donald Trump.
Other French companies like Auchan, Valeo and ArcelorMittal are also laying off hundreds of employees. In 2024, France registered the highest number of company bankruptcies in the past 15 years, a recent study found. The massive tide of layoffs has already spread across Europe, including in the bloc’s industrial engine, Germany, where Michelin is also shuttering two plants and Volkswagen is cutting 35,000 jobs.
Industrial decline has been accompanied by a rise of the far right. In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party pulled off its best-ever showing in last year’s parliamentary election, giving the once-pariah party the ability to bring down the government. In Germany, the far-right Alternative for Germany, some of whose leaders have aped Nazi slogans, pulled in over a fifth of the vote in a Feb. 23 election.