French Government Says Nestle Wants To Keep Perrier

PARIS (AFP) - The French government said that food group Nestle, which earlier signalled it might dispose of its famed Perrier water brand in a high-profile clash with unions over job cuts, wanted to keep the business and resume negotiations.
Nestle Waters France, a subsidiary of Swiss food giant Nestle, later confirmed in a statement that it was prepared to renew contacts with union leaders on holding on to Perrier provided they dropped their opposition to an early retirement scheme.
The fate of Perrier was given added bubble last week when Economy and Finance Minister Nicholas Sarkozy, who has made a number of high-profile interventions in the economy recently, said the "all or nothing" resistance to the early retirement plan for more than 1,000 workers "gave an image of our country that discourages international investors".
On Tuesday the government said in a statement that Nestle Waters France management, after a meeting with Sarkozy, had indicated it wanted to keep its Perrier mineral waters business and resume discussions with the principal union concerned, the powerful Confederation Generale du Travail (CGT)
"The minister met leaders of Nestle Waters France to unblock the situation created by the right of opposition launched by the CGT that prevented the application of an employee-management agreement," the statement said.
"Following this meeting, and at the request of the minister, the management of Nestle Waters France expressed its willingness to keep the activities of Source Perrier and (bottling plant) Verrerie du Languedoc within the group in the framework of an implementation of the July 29 agreement."
In its own communique, Nestle Waters France warned that "under no circumstances" could the July agreement be re-negotiated.
CGT official Jean-Paul Franc later said his union would on Thursday consider "taking a decision on the withdrawal or not" of its opposition, adding: "There must be a return to dialogue, to negotiations, in order to get out of this impasse."
Nestle Waters said last week it might sell Perrier while keeping other options open, including a mooted outsourcing.
The company said it had been forced to consider its options after union blockage of an early retirement plan announced in January that affected 1,047 Perrier workers from a total 4,100.
In July, the majority CGT, France's biggest union, and Force Ouvriere rejected the plan, exercising their right of refusal following nine months of negotiations.
The CGT position was backed by the Force Ouvriere (FO) union, while two other unions -- the CFDT and the CFTC -- accepted the proposal that, Sarkozy has stressed, contains no outright job cuts.
The self-proclaimed "champagne of waters," Perrier hit the skids in 1990 when labs identified minute traces of carcinogenic benzene in it, forcing the company to pull 280 million bottles from the market.
Nestle Waters, which bought Perrier two years later, is the world's leading distributor of mineral water, with other brands including Poland Spring, Vittel and San Pellegrino.