French Circet chosen to take over Scopelec, 1,049 jobs saved

The French company Circet was chosen by the Lyon commercial court to take over the majority of Scopelec’s activities and retain 1,049 employees out of the 2,300 of the first French cooperative group, placed in receivership at the end of September. During the hearing on December 8, the administrators and legal representatives, as well as the prosecution, had judged Circet’s offer to be more financially solid than that of Newscope, which provided for the safeguarding of 1,457 jobs and was supported by a majority of employees. .

Installation of optical fiber and maintenance of the copper network

According to the court ruling, a copy of which AFP obtained on Wednesday, Circet, a French specialist in telecommunications infrastructure which belongs to the British investment fund ICG, undertakes to take over all of Scopelec’s activity with the exception of the Réunion-Mayotte zone, the “uses and services” business branch and the south-east zone for its Gobé and Scopelec Energie Services subsidiaries.

Scopelec provided the installation of optical fiber and the maintenance of the copper network for Orange before the announcement in November 2021 of the loss of most of this market, which provided 40% of their turnover.

Calls on the State to “take its responsibilities”

In mid-December, the employees had asked President Emmanuel Macron to position themselves in the name of “sovereignty” in favor of their takeover project. The day before the hearing, political representatives including the PS president of the Occitanie region Carole Delga, the environmentalist mayor of Lyon Grégory Doucet and the deputy Nupes François Ruffin had called on the State to “take its responsibilities”.

According to them, justice had to decide between two “diametrically opposed projects”: those of companies “owned by foreign powers”, and that of Newscope supported by “80% of employees”. The other candidates for the takeover were the companies Alsatis, Kyntus, Solutions 30 and Foliateam.