the Rouen Normandy metropolis wants to pre-empt Darblay Chapel
It is very rare in industrial matters. The Rouen Normandie metropolis announced on Friday, October 15 in the afternoon, that it would “User of his pre-emptive right” to prevent the sale of Chapelle Darblay, the most “Large recycling site” of paper and cardboard in France, to a group which aims to change its activity. In his eyes, Chapelle Darblay, on sale since September 2019 and closed since summer 2020, is of interest “Major strategic for France”, with a capacity to recycle a third of the French market, declared its president PS Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol.
→ CONTEXT. Can the Darblay Chapel paper production site be saved?
The community actually aims to promote a buyout by the world number one in water and waste Veolia, associated with Fiber Excellence, the leading French producer of commercial pulp, which would maintain the recycling of paper / cardboard. The two companies, which the president of the metropolis described as “Serious and credible”, had announced in extremis Thursday, October 14, a few hours from a decisive board of directors, to be candidates together for the purchase of the Darblay Chapel.
The owner has not changed his mind
This was not therefore enough to change the opinion of its owner, the Finnish UPM, the world’s largest paper producer, who announced Friday that he had accepted the proposal of the other consortium candidate for the takeover of the 33 hectare plant, its last in France. It brings together Samfi, a Norman industrial investment company, and Paprec, one of the leaders in waste treatment and recycling in France.
Paprec and Samfi have promised 250 direct jobs, “With a maturity of 2 to 3 years”, Paprec president Jean-Luc Petithuguenin told AFP. The two companies evoke “Up to 450 million euros” investments “In order to produce renewable hydrogen and raw materials from recycling”.
“This implies the dismantling of the industrial tool”, declared Julien Senecal, CGT secretary of the social and economic committee (CSE), and Arnaud Dauxerre, representative of executives at the central CSE. The two men are among the last five employees of the site, after the dismissal of 228 people in 2020.
The regrets of the ministers
The ministers of economy and industry, Bruno Le Maire and Agnès Pannier-Runacher, who in recent months seemed to resign themselves to the takeover by Paprec and Samfi, have issued a press release to regret that“UPM did not delay its decision making even though the two offers could not benefit from a sufficiently detailed examination”.
“It is UPM’s responsibility to carry out, with all the stakeholders, an in-depth analysis of all the available options, in order to allow the best possible reindustrialisation of this site from which it has chosen to separate”, they stressed.
On the metropolitan side, things are clear: with the Samfi / Paprec project, “The skills (…) of the Darblay Chapel lost”. What challenges Jean-Luc Petithuguenin, president of Paprec. To his eyes, “There is no longer a place in France” for a paper recycling activity, with the fall in newsprint requirements and the rise in cardboard requirements already provided by two factories in France, Norske Skog in Golbey in the Vosges, and in Normandy with the arrival of the Belgian papermaker VPK in Alizay, in the Eure.
Relocate “an industry that was going to leave France”
At Veolia, we highlight 250 qualified jobs on the site, which “Produce 400,000 tonnes of packaging cardboard for a fast-growing international market, from recycled paper and cardboard, collected in France”. The waste giant also promises a modernization of the production tool and the boiler, for an investment of 120 million euros, in order to allow “The relocation of an industry which was going to leave France”, in the words of its CEO, Antoine Frérot.
Since the machines stopped at Grand-Couronne, “480,000 tonnes of paper were sent abroad, incinerated or buried, affirmed in June the NGO Greenpeace, which fought against the disappearance of the site. And tons of CO2 equivalent have been produced unnecessarily. “