The Lyon commercial court has ruled. The French company Circet was chosen to take over the majority of Scopelec’s activities and safeguard 1,049 employees out of the 2,300 of the first French cooperative group, placed in receivership at the end of September.
During the hearing on December 8, the administrators and legal representatives, as well as the prosecution, had deemed Circet’s offer more financially sound than that of Newscope, which provided for the safeguarding of 1,457 jobs and was supported by a majority of employees. .
The project favored by the employees is not retained
Scopelec provided the installation of optical fiber and the maintenance of the copper network for Orange before the announcement in November 2021 of the loss of most of this market, which provided 40% of their turnover.
In mid-December, the employees had asked President Emmanuel Macron to position themselves in the name of “sovereignty” in favor of their takeover project.
The day before the hearing, political representatives including the PS president of the Occitanie region Carole Delga, the environmentalist mayor of Lyon Grégory Doucet and the deputy Nupes François Ruffin had called on the State to “take its responsibilities”.
According to them, justice had to decide between two “diametrically opposed projects”: those of companies “owned by foreign powers”, and that of Newscope supported by “80% of employees”. Four other companies were candidates for the takeover.