Article content

Why don’t they just go and rob a bunch of French banks and they could end up buying Goodyear? They’re crazy

The two executives of Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.’s French unit held hostage for two days by a union over a plant closure were freed after police intervened.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Goodyear managers held hostage by workers in France freed by police Back to video

Goodyear had refused to open talks with the union until the release of the executives. The union, CGT, said it now plans to occupy the plant.

“The show is only just beginning,” Mickael Wamen, leader of the CGT union at Goodyear’s Amiens-Nord factory, said at a press conference after the release of the hostages.

The hostage-taking had been the latest twist in Goodyear’s woes in France. The Akron, Ohio-based company, which employs about 3,000 people in the country, announced plans in January 2013 to shut a facility after failing to reach an accord after five years of talks with the CGT, the main union at the site.

The company’s plans, which put 1,173 jobs at risk, have caused violent clashes that left 19 police officers injured in March and there were demonstrations in February before Goodyear’s local headquarters in Rueil-Malmaison by workers and their families. The CGT has also filed a lawsuit in Ohio.