Lutter pour partir ou pour rester ? Licenciements et aide au retour des travailleurs immigrés dans le conflit Talbot, 1983-1984

Abstract

In the late nineteen seventies and early eighties, the restructuring of the French automobile industry caused a significant reduction in the number of unskilled jobs. When the Board of directors of the Talbot factory in Poissy near Paris announced its redundancy plan in 1983, a one-month strike was launched to defend the work site and oppose the dismissals. But as the demands remained unanswered, some of the unskilled migrant workers, the first to be threatened by the redundancies, called for financial assistance to return to their home countries. Arising in the middle of the conflict, the new demand forced the strikers to reconsider their positions. Though union activists were uncomfortable with the demand, which they viewed as a renunciation to fight for employment, they ended up accepting it. As to the French government, it saw it as an opportunity, creating a new system to encourage migrant workers to go back to their countries of origin.