Loss of employment: when the world turns upside down | France 2 | Cellule de crise

2008, in Alsace. After two centuries of activity, a factory closes its doors for good. Over several months we followed the struggle of the employees on this site, which belongs to one of the oldest names in the French textile industries, now in its death throes. We accompanied them day to day up till the day their business closed. Today, their situation is a series of questions: How to find a job? How to manage credit? What about the children’s education? We investigated the redeployment units set up to assist the redundant workers and help them to find work more easily. We followed former employees of the Arena group. Although compensated, they still don’t find work. Some of them show up at the ANPE employment agency. A path that is strewn with pitfalls where advisors sometimes forget to set out certain obligations incumbent on job seekers. The problem: failure to fulfill these obligations may lead to your name being taken off the lists. We also investigated the true unemployment figures. How do you explain that factories are closing one after another, but, officially, unemployment is falling? An ANPE advisor has been denouncing, with documentary evidence, the hypocrisy behind the figures. According to her, the figure today in France is as high as 19% of the active population. A long way from the 7% announced by the government for the first quarter of 2008. Now on leave of absence, Fabienne Brutus has never been sanctioned for her remarks.