French aerospace company Ariane will fire 588 people by the end of 2022, including 527 in France. Among the latter 264 cuts concern the three sites in the Gironde region of France: Le Haillan (75 redundancies), Saint-Médard Poudrerie (61) and Saint-Médard Issac (128). This is the first consequence of the new company labor contract validated by the works council last December 8.

"We do not question the reality: the company's labor plan marks -36%. But we cannot support a plan to reduce the workforce, especially given the risks related to the workload that will fall on the remaining teams. On the other hand, we have signed the contract to allow outgoing workers to benefit from better conditions and provided that there are no other redundancies in Ariane Group between now and the end of 2022". It was explained by the union delegate of Cfe-Cgc, Philippe Géry, in an interview with the French newspaper "La Tribune".

After lowering its work plan in the Summer, the group had announced that it would cut nearly 600 jobs in September 2021. After three months of negotiations, the workforce adjustment plan received an initial unanimous negative opinion from the representative unions in recent days, who then reached an agreement with the company.

Ariane is facing strong competition and numerous challenges. These include the new adventure of reusable mini-launch rockets. It is also developing the Ariane 6 heavy launcher, whose maiden launch has been postponed until the third quarter of 2022.