Suspension of Brittany Ferries contract
In Saint-Nazaire, within the STX shipyards, anger is palpable. Brittany Ferries, the shipping company from Roscoff, was to entrust the construction of a super ferry âeuros one of the largest in the world with its 210 meters long - to the shipyard of Loire Atlantique. The construction of Pegasis, an ecological project, signed in January and which was to be delivered at the end of 2016, allowed 500 employees to keep their jobs for three years.
The Pegasis requires a budget of 270 million euros, Brittany Ferries had to raise the necessary funds but failed in this operation. At the beginning of September, the company therefore informed the suspension of the project.
A construction that risks escaping France
While Jean-François Jacob, president of the Sica Saint-Pol producers' association, the main shareholder of Brittany Ferries, is in talks with the French state concerning the financing of the ferry, he announced last Friday that he would entrust the construction of his gas ferry to a foreign country if he did not find an agreement. This statement has triggered the anger of the unions of the STX shipyard, as hundreds of employees will be affected by a wave of short-time working. The unions are also calling on the French government to quickly complete the request for funding for the project, because in addition to hundreds of jobs involved, it is also the know-how of the shipyard that would suffer because the construction of a gas-powered ship would have been a real opportunity.
