Faced with global competition and the fall in orders, Thyssenkrupp announces the summer suspension of its Isbergues site, weakening 1,200 jobs in France.
There European steel industry is going through an unprecedented storm. Faced with low-cost global competition and a fall in orders, the behemoth German Thyssenkrupp announces a new summer closure of its Isbergues site (Pas-de-Calais)illustrating the tensions weighing on the industry and its employees.
A summer closure in the face of global competition
From June to September, the Isbergues site, specialized in grain-oriented electrical steel – strategic material for substation transformers and wind turbines –, will stop temporarily. This decision follows a first shutdown at the turn of the year, which also affected the German site of Gelsenkirchen. Since January, the French factory has already been operating at only 50% of its capacity.
Grain oriented electrical steel is a specialized material, essential to the operation of motors and electrical networks, as well as the transfer of energy produced by installations as diverse as nuclear, hydroelectric, gas and wind farms. It is impossible to manufacture transformers or electric motors without this steel, which greatly improves their efficiency. In a context of energy transition, global demand for this equipment is therefore set to explode. © Shutterstock
Angelo di Martino, Chairman of the Board of Management of Thyssenkrupp Electrical Steelpoint “the ruinous influx of low-cost imports“and prices sometimes”significantly lower than European production costs” as the main cause of this suspension. According to the group, this measure is essential to stabilize the company in the face of massive underutilization of production capacities in Europe, the result of a meteoric rise in imports since 2022.
Weakened jobs and a call to Europe
L’future of the 1,200 employees of the Isbergues and Gelsenkirchen sites remains uncertain. Thyssenkrupp ensures that it is doing everything possible to preserve jobs, while calling on the European Union to act quickly, through effective safeguard measures that still do not exist.
The European Commission proposed at the end of 2025 a bailout plan to double tariffs on steel importsa text which must still be validated by the Council and the European Parliament by the end of June. The fate of the sites and employees will largely depend on this strategic decision.
© INA FASSBENDER / AFP
