Toulouse: Cnes, on massive strike, fears to “become a simple financing agency”
They’ve been walking since last Thursday. Several hundred employees of the National Center for Space Studies (Cnes) in Toulouse (Haute-Garonne) have been on strike since last week, reports franceinfo this Monday. This mobilization, which also concerns the sites of Paris and Kourou (Guyana), denounces the new contract of objectives and performance (Cop) which has just been formalized by the government to define the next four years. It leaves the lion’s share of space research to the private sector.
At the heart of the protests also, wage increases, which do not compensate for inflation, denounce the strikers. “The global line doesn’t hear much talk, it’s subsidiarity. That means that basically, the Cnes must no longer do, must no longer produce, and must delegate as much as possible to industry. We will make it become a simple financing agency, that is to say that our role would be to give money to industrialists without any control, ”said Damien Desroches, engineer and CGT delegate, interviewed by Franceinfo.
“If in five years, the start-up has sunk (…) the public money will have been spent”
“We arrive with our money, we give it with a blank check, to people who we know do not currently have the technical skills to do so, denounces the union representative again. And we tell them: deal with that and then we’ll see each other again in five years. And then, if in five years, the start-up sank, it sank. And the public money, it will have been spent. »
According to the new Cop, Cnes must invest 1.5 billion euros in the coming years in the private sector and start-ups. “If we simplify, the Cnes will just become a checkbook for start-ups and industry”, summarizes an employee with France Blue. Last Thursday, according to local radio, they were 600 to disengage on the Toulouse site which has 1,700 people.