Peugeot boss Jean-Martin Folz will face British government ministers this week for showdown talks over the French carmaker's controversial decision to close its Ryton plant in Coventry.
Alun Michael, minister for industry and the regions, is demanding to meet Folz to discuss the details of last week's shock announcement, which will cost 2,300 jobs. He is seeking assurances that CSA Peugeot-Citroen will honour its declared commitment to help retrain workers and lay off staff in stages.
'The aim is to avoid another Rover,' said a DTI source, referring to the Birmingham carmaker, which collapsed suddenly with the loss of 6,000 jobs.
The meeting will be the first time Michael and Folz have talked about the closure in detail, although the Peugeot chief executive spoke to Michael at a brief meeting last Tuesday. However, the government is understood to have abandoned any hope of persuading Folz to reconsider his decision to close Ryton.
That will be a bitter disappointment to unions, which claim that Britain's labour laws are failing to protect the country's workers. Peugeot has retained its factories in France, where it is more expensive to make workers redundant, and is expected to produce the new Peugeot 207 in low-cost Slovakia.
The government claims that Britain's flexible labour laws encourage foreign investment. This weekend Digby Jones, outgoing CBI director-general, supported this view, predicting that Peugeot would eventually be forced to relocate factories in France as well.
Union members at Ryton are said to be divided over taking strike action.
