Angry employees of French carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroën have donated their “pathetic” bonuses to charity. Workers received bonuses of between 40 cents and 18 euros, unions said, just as the company announced a 1.3-million-euro annual salary for new boss Carlos Tavares.

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Judging their bonuses “pathetic and not acceptable”, workers at PSA’s factory in Valenciennes, northern France, decided they would give them to the Restos du Coeur, a charity launched by comedian Coluche in the 1980s to help the poor.

More than 500 employees at half a dozen other factories and research centres joined them, bringing the total collected to nearly 6,000 euros, according to the CGT union.

The union dubbed the bonuses a “provocation”, coming as they did at the same time as the announcement that Tavares will be paid not just a salary of 1.3 million euros a year but also a variable bonus.

PSA shareholders have just receieved a 100-million-euro payout, the CGT says, thanks to the three-billion-euro increase in capital made possible by the French state and Chinese carmaker Dongfeng buying into the company.

PSA Peugeot Citroën has laid off staff and closed a factory at Aulnay-sous-Bois, near Paris, because of fall in sales, especially in Europe.

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