Salomon Plans To Cease French Production

Salomon has announced it plans to close it's Rumilly plant and cease all production in France. The unfortunate news comes on the back of a turbulent couple of years for the Amer Sports owned ski manufacturer, which despite recently celebrating sixty years in the business has already had to cut jobs in 2005 and 2006.

The majority of the 284 Salomon jobs will be lost from the Rumilly plant, while 34 will go at Annecy.  In November last year Salomon MD Jean-Luc Diard was fired by Amer Sports President Roger Talermo.  Production at Rumilly has been in steady decline with just 50,000 skis being produced last season.

Current Salomon boss Bernard Millau cites a reported 30% squeeze in the winter sports market resulting in lots of surplus stock and low reorder levels.