It was a dramatic scene on Sunday evening in the Woippy district as a massive plume of black smoke billowed into the sky shortly after 7pm hundreds of onlookers gathered along Avenue des Deux Fontaines a long road that borders the residential area and the expansive Metz-Deux Fontaines industrial zone The fire broke out in the large parking lot of the La Maxe truck centre located just 500 metres from the A31 motorway slip road Firefighters from Metz arrived swiftly and battled the intense blaze for nearly an hour before bringing it under control and the flames came dangerously close to a fourth truck parked nearby firefighters managed to prevent the fire from spreading further the incident may have been caused by a truck driver attempting to prepare a meal using a mess kit a regular stop for truck drivers who use the nearby hotel and dining facilities is located within the vast Metz-Deux Fontaines industrial zone Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker Farmers are beginning nationwide protests in France and rail workers have announced strikes starting December 11 as workers face a wave of mass layoffs announced across Europe and internationally Supermarket chain Auchan has announced an unprecedented slashing of thousands of jobs in France This comes amid mass sackings in the auto industry with tens of thousands of jobs threatened at Volkswagen in Germany as well as at Stellantis in the United States and internationally Beyond the 2,400 jobs threatened at Auchan auto parts maker Michelin has announced the closure before 2026 of two factories in western France Michelin nevertheless recorded a record €3.6 billion operating profit in 2023 The restructuring planned by Auchan includes rationalizing Auchan-France’s and Auchan-International’s customer support services as well as the international products department The rationalizing of Auchan’s logistics operations for home deliveries threatens to close three warehouses that are to be replaced by drive-ins Three stores are to close—at Clermont-Ferrand Woippy and Bar-le-Duc—as well as a smaller store at Aurillac and six shops After several waves of mass sackings in 2024 the 5,000 remaining jobs are also threatened France’s Insee national statistics office confirms an economic downturn that is unprecedented since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic Official projections are that unemployment will rise back over 8 percent this coming year These mass sackings are the response of the capitalist class to the international economic and political crisis triggered by the pandemic and the NATO war with Russia trillions of euros in public funds were handed over to financial markets and major corporations for speculation to enrich the financial oligarchy and build a war economy together with Europe’s decision to cut itself off from cheaper Russian gas has triggered an inflation crisis and vastly intensified the budget and debt crises of the major European states Trump’s election victory in the United States has accelerated the decision of the European bourgeoisies to carry out mass sackings in Europe amid mounting fears of the trade war policies Trump will employ against both China and Europe Workers must reject the massive attacks on jobs that are being prepared by all the NATO powers The working class does not have to take responsibility for the devastation provoked by the irresponsible and destructive policies of imperialism and the financial oligarchy the major corporations that live off public funds while preparing mass sackings must be nationalized in order to stop attacks on jobs and working conditions This requires an uncompromising political struggle against French President Emmanuel Macron’s government and his NATO allies State complicity in attacks on jobs is so transparent that it is becoming a subject even of official debate In a question-and-answer session at the National Assembly on November 5 Prime Minister Michel Barnier hypocritically declared: “I am not proud I want to know what corporations have done with money we gave them and we will see whether the money was well spent or badly spent The owners of Auchan are the Mulliez family whose net worth of €28 billion makes them the 7th-largest fortune in France according to the 2024 list established by financial magazine Challenges this corporation benefited from €83 million in grants of public funds claiming: “The state will ensure that the defense of jobs remains at the center of the corporation’s strategy and that the priority during this transformation remains with jobs.” The Barnier government’s promises are so many lies designed to hide its complicity in corporate jobs cuts the Mulliez family carried out one restructuring plan and used Macron’s labor law reforms to declare bankruptcy This included the 98 stores of the Casino supermarket chain whose total value is estimated at around €1 billion Auchan has undergone a constant fall in the number of customers in its supermarkets and a fall in its operating revenues and before the purchase of Casino supermarkets its market share fell from 12.1 to 8 percent Given these results and in an ultra-competitive climate The Workers Force (FO) union bureaucracy at Auchan responded by stating: “We must observe that workers are being sacrificed in the name of profitability FO elected representatives demand the opening of genuine negotiations and the guarantee that every workers will receive an employment solution and total transparency as to economic motivations.” Stalinist General Confederation of Labor (CGT) bureaucracy chief Sophie Binet commented: “We are at the beginning of a genuine industrial bloodbath.” It “will hit every industry,” she said as corporations want “always to raise profits” and “distribute their profits to shareholders.” Binet claimed the CGT has a list of “nearly 200” mass layoff plans that are being prepared She responded by appealing to state authorities for “a true industrial policy,” so a corporation “cannot receive public funding if trade union officials do not give it their support.” Workers at Auchan and other corporations targeted by this wave of mass layoffs cannot expect that France’s corrupt union bureaucracies will organize a struggle that can halt the offensive against jobs They participated in the restructuring of the European economy by approving countless EU bank bailouts They then aligned themselves with their own imperialist governments in the war with Russia in Ukraine and the wasting of hundreds of billions of euros on this war and the building of a “war economy.” An international mass movement must be built from below using social media as did the “yellow vest” protests to defend jobs and oppose the massive attacks that are now being prepared It is not a question simply of mobilizing workers at one workplace The fightback against the European and global jobs bloodbath that the capitalists want to impose requires the international unification of workers struggle and the building of a socialist movement to stop the wars and trade wars waged by the imperialist powers Plucked from our friends over at 5minutes we have some archival footage dating back to the 1960s transporting the viewers to an era of swinging strawberries in Steinsel with word of Steinsel's strawberries travelling far and wide The enterprise originally began 30 years prior when local horticulturist Nicolas Kolber adopted French growing and cultivation methods from the north-eastern commune of Woippy Steinsel had established a strawberry co-operative with about a hundred producers 45 tons of strawberries were being produced imported strawberries from Southern Europe rivalled those of local farmers 5 minutes' media archive (a treasure trove for anyone interested in local culture) posts a variety of footage every week: unedited film commercials or rarely-seen images that move including clips from 50s and 60s Télé Luxembourg SNCF communicated the incident at 1.39 pm via Twitter and announced that train circulation between Metz and Thionville has been suspended for the time being This also affects trains going to Luxembourg and to Thionville from Luxembourg RTL's sources reported that a large operation is occurring to fix the situation adding that firefighters are at the scene and that SNCF have a 'dangerous material' code in place railway traffic between Luxembourg and Thionville is picking up again The bus replacement service is still in place despite this the TER Luxembourg-Metz at 4.09pm was able to leave on time There are bus replacement services that are connecting Luxembourg and Thionville from 3pm onwards at Quai 19 of Luxembourg City's bus station ⚡️ #FlashInfo #TERNancyMetzLux⚠️ Suite à un incident sur un train de marchandises à Woippy la circulation est actuellement interrompue entre Metz et Thionville