Paul Hud­son faces down French unions in fight to re­struc­ture Sanofi

Sanofi CEO Paul Hud­son is fac­ing a fa­mil­iar ad­ver­sary in his ef­forts to cut up to 1,680 jobs from the French phar­ma gi­ant: French unions.

Around 200 union mem­bers staged a one-day strike Tues­day at Sanofi’s main Covid-19 vac­cine plant in Mar­cy-l’Étoile to protest the cuts, The As­so­ci­at­ed Press re­port­ed, with oth­er mem­bers join­ing at oth­er fa­cil­i­ties across the coun­try.

France’s fi­nance min­is­ter Bruno Le Maire, mean­while, went on French ra­dio twice this week to talk about the com­pa­ny. On Mon­day, per Reuters, he told RTL that Sanofi would not close any plants or lay off any em­ploy­ees in the re­struc­tur­ing. But on Wednes­day morn­ing, he re-emerged on BFM and said he would like three things from the drug­mak­er, in­clud­ing con­fir­ma­tion that there will be no site clo­sures and lay­offs.

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