The case of Renault Vilvoorde four years later

• Michel de VIRVILLE
  General Secretary and Managing Director of Human Resources, Renault
  
• Danielle KAISERGRUBER
  President of the board of directors, Bernard Brunhes Consultants
  

Summary

In February 1997, Renault announced the closure of its site at Vilvoorde, Belgium, in order to rationalise its production in Europe. There was amazement and anger in Belgium where Michel de Virville had a rough reception. Demonstrations took place in Brussels in March and April. At the request of the Renault board of directors, Danielle Kaisergruber was appointed to study an alternative solution to the closure of Vilvoorde, namely a reduction in the number of working hours throughout the entire group in Europe. However, the dissolution of the French National Assembly led to an unexpected political change in power : would the Belgians bank on this event in order to call into question the negotiations for the planned redundancy scheme which were already under way ? A vote was called and 97% of the Belgians were in favour of continuing negotiations. The Belgians and the French have very different points of reference in social relations and the role of politics : this did not make it any easier for them to understand each other's position from the outset…

Summary translated from French by Rachel MARLIN.

• The entire article was written by Élisabeth BOURGUINAT.

To obtain this article, you can :

• download it for free in French (PDF help) or contact ecopar@paris.ensmp.fr (Reference VC081101).

The entire article appears in French in the Journal de l'École de Paris du management N° 34.