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A source close to the matter said company chief Lakshmi Mittal was to meet President Francois Hollande tomorrow ahead of a deadline Saturday for France to find a buyer for two shuttered blast furnaces at the site in northeast of the country.
France says it has two offers, but only for the entire site, and Mittal has refused to sell the full operation.
Industrial Renewal Minister Arnaud Montebourg has raised the spectre of a temporary nationalisation of the plant, prompting Mittal to warn that would threaten its activities in France, where it employs 20,000 people.
Montebourg upped the stakes today, saying France did not want ArcelorMittal in the country anymore and is looking for an industrial partner to take over the group's operations at the plant.
"We do not want Mittal in France any longer because they do not respect France," Montebourg told the French financial daily Les Echos.
"Mittal's lies since 2006 are damning," the French minister said, adding that the company "has never honoured its commitments" to the country.
Newspaper Le Monde quoted members of the Mittal family as saying they were "extremely shocked" by Montebourg's remarks.
Montebourg told Les Echos he was working on a "transitory nationalisation" project for the site.
The newspaper said that "the idea would be to associate an industrial operator with a minority capital stake for as long as it takes to stabilise activity" at the plant.
The fate of the site has become a litmus test of Socialist President Francois Hollande's strategy for fighting rising unemployment and raising the flagging competitiveness of French industry.
The plant is based in the Lorraine region of eastern France, the traditional centre of France's steel industry.
ArcelorMittal has said the furnaces, which were damped down for 14 months prior to their closure, were uncompetitive in a tough trading climate, partly because they are too far from ports for transportation.
Les Echos has reported that Russian group Severstal is among several potential buyers for the furnaces.
ArcelorMittal last month reported it had plunged into a third quarter net loss of USD 709 million due to a slump in Chinese demand and operating losses in Europe.
The group owns 11 blast furnaces in northern France, Germany and Belgium and, as well as the two at Florange, has shut down two furnaces in the Belgian city of Liege and one in the French port town of Dunkirk.
May be its time for India to invite Euro Typhoon for fresh talks along with Rafale
Please check the wrongly written in todays Loksatta-mumbai 28.11.12 paragraph of Shivsena pramukhanchya smarkavarun sarkar- Word mistake is Instead of shivsena wrot shilsena which totally wrong so clarify the mistake & publish sorry letter tomorrow newspaper.
Mr Montebourg, partly from North African origin, and living until recently with a West Indian woman, can hardly be describded as a racist. The problem with Mittal is that since he bought Arcelor, he shut down number of rentable factories, in order to organize steel shortage. Meanwhile he made a lot of promises and told many lies both to the French government and workers.
May be its time for India to invite Euro Typhoon for fresh talks along with Rafale
Mittal is an NRI holding an Indian passport! The French despite being capitalists have a capitalistic phobia! Montebourg is crazy as is his socialist government!!
This is commitment as private investor has committed to French people. When the Industry was going great guns Mittal made huge profits. He did not share that profits with India's poor. Unlike Bill Gates, Warren Buffets , Mittal never did that. Also Mittal is not an Indian.
May be its time for India to invite Euro Typhoon for fresh talks along with Rafale
May be its time for India to invite Euro Typhoon for fresh talks along with Rafale
When their interest are on stake , they forget about globalization and behaves like communist and then big U turn they preach about Globalization and capitalism. what a shame on you france
India should cancel the multi billion contract for purchase of the French fighter aircraft and go for either the USA or the Russia option. India should also take steps to reduce trade with France and cancel all contracts with French industry. French are racists as recent riots have shown. The British are much better but the USA is the best.
