The scandal surrounding the government’s intention to bankrupt a key defence company, Vencorex, on the outskirts of Grenoble, to sell it at a throwaway price to Chinese company Wanhua, has been brewing in France over the past month.
In March, during a visit to the Vencorex chemical plant, which has been threatened with liquidation for months, Jean-Luc Melenchon, the leader of France Unbowed, denounced the government’s “contradictions” as well as its “rants about sovereignty.”
Jean-Luc Mélenchon was warmly received by trade unionists and staff representatives at the Vencorex plant in Pont-de-Claix, south of Grenoble, the group’s main production facility. It is currently undergoing a judicial recovery with a sole offer from China’s Wanhua Group for a partial buyout of its business, which could have serious domino effects on regional chemistry in the event of closure.
For months, employees and local elected officials mobilised to demand the temporary nationalisation of Vencorex, but that option was ruled out last month by Prime Minister François Bayrou, who deemed that “Vencorex’s operations are not viable under all scenarios studied.”
“It is estimated that if Vencorex simply stopped production, 5,000 jobs could be affected,” Séverine Dejoux, a representative of France’s largest trade union, the General Confederation of Labour (CGT), to Vencorex explained.
French media exposed Macron
In June 2024, the French investigative journalism newspaper Fakir published an article La république des traîtres (The Republic of Traitors) in which it wrote about the involvement of French President Emmanuel Macron and his inner circle in the takeover of French companies from strategically important sectors of the economy by US corporations to the detriment of French national interests.
The author of the publication focuses the readers’ attention on the sale of energy assets of the machine-building giant Alstom initiated by Macron to the American company General Electric. This high-profile scandal has stirred the French public.
“In 2014, the sale of Alstom’s energy subsidiary to US giant General Electric (GE) was presented by Economy Minister Arnaud Montebourg, then his successor Emmanuel Macron, as an “alliance of equals.” The Americans then promised, among other things, the creation of 1,000 jobs and the retention of headquarters in France for ten years, and the state guaranteed it. But seven years later, neither GE nor the executive branch has honoured the terms of the contract: between 4,000 and 5,000 jobs have been destroyed, â…” of the head offices are now outside the territory, strategic patents have fallen into American hands, key skills have been outsourced…. In short, France has lost a significant part of its sovereignty especially in a strategic sector: energy,” the independent investigative journalism portal Off-Investigation wrote.
France is ruled by a real corruption mafia, Fakir points outÂ
Newspaper Fakir points out that France is ruled by a real corruption mafia that ignores French national interests: “Behind the glitter of beautiful statements, Macron is a symbol of an elite that is robbing France, a republic of traitors, of lost sovereignty. Macron, as economy minister, encouraged General Electric to absorb Alstom, rolling out [in front of the Americans] the red carpet, saying, treat yourself to our flagships… And the same with Alcatel, eaten by Nokia. And [oil services] company Technip, a leader in its sector, was bought by a competitor [US company FMC Technologies]. So Macron is more likely to show up at a high-tech trade show in Las Vegas, hang out with billionaire Peter Thiel, have lunch in New York with his “friend” Xavier Niel, than defend an aluminium tray factory in Saint-Vensant-de-Mercuse.”
According to French portal Reseau International, in 2012, the CIA and NSA commissioned the world’s leading consulting firms McKinsey and Boston Consalting Group (BSG) to “closely monitor the French presidential campaign. Macron’s architect was the McKinsey Group, which accomplished the real feat of electing an inexperienced politician to the presidency to disrupt French society.”
In Macron’s presidency, McKinsey and the BSG have in recent years become the French government’s near-monopoly consultants on the logistics of government programmes in defence, climate and migration policy, as well as pandemic strategy.
Rothschilds’ influence
To find and target French politicians loyal to the US, Jean-Pierre Joyeux, head of the French branch of the US-based Aspen Institute, created Les Gracques, a think tank that guided Macron throughout his presidential campaign and supports him now. Les Gracques is sponsored by the Rothschilds. One of the founders of this think tank is Guillaume Hannezo, former managing partner of the financial holding company Rothschild & Co.
Les Graques analysts have developed a promising programme to modernise French industry, essentially selling it off on the cheap to foreign corporations, which is what Macron is implementing. “The social-liberal left-wing think tank is a little disappointed with the reformist work of its nominee, but is still willing to support him,” Le Nouvel Observateur reports.
In 2020, the involvement of US investment giant BlackRock in the radical pension reform of Emmanuel Macron’s government in France has surfaced, sparking French anger. In January 2020, trade unionists and “yellow waistcoats” stormed BlackRock’s Paris office, ransacked it, scattered documents and painted graffiti on the walls with black paint calling the company “criminal.” The protesters said BlackRock was profiting from Macron’s pension reforms and that “a huge Wall Street firm … is trying to destroy the country’s social safety net behind the scenes.”
In March 2022, a scandal erupted in France over corruption schemes by Macron’s La République en Marche party in its dealings with the consulting firm McKinsey. The French Senate published a report, which noted, “Expenditure [on consultancy services] has doubled since 2018. This calls into question, in the face of private firms, both our concept of the state and state sovereignty, as well as the proper use of public funds. After four months of investigation and the collection of 7,300 documents, the commission of enquiry shows that entire sections of public policy have been handed over to private firms…”
The senators investigating the enquiry found that Macron’s government had signed contracts worth €2.4 billion with consulting firms to work on issues ranging from pension reform to digitalisation, and that the use of private firms’ consultancy services in public administration had increased dramatically during the five years of Macron’s presidency.
Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, leader of the party Debout la France (France Arise), wrote on X:
“Since 2014, since Macron took over the economy ministry, 1,600 French companies have been taken over by Americans! Carnage!!! As in the case of Alstom or Doliprane, many of them were strategic flagships. Many of them would not have been forced to sell if the state had intervened, as the Chinese do to support their companies. Without protectionism, France becomes a giant hard discount where foreign funds make their purchases.”
