“Sanofi, Olympic champion of layoffs”: more than 200 demonstrators – employees, trade unionists and political representatives – protested this Tuesday in front of the Paris headquarters of the French pharmaceutical flagship against job cuts in oncology research. “Olympics = throw away oncology”: the demonstrators increased their winks to the Olympic Games, of which Sanofi is a partner, to denounce in front of the group’s headquarters a social plan announced earlier this month, a consequence of the group’s refocusing in immunology.
This plan provides for the elimination of 1,200 positions in the R
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“Sanofi cynically flouts all the values of Olympism,” denounced Jean-Paul Nicolas, CFDT union delegate from Vitry for whom “Sanofi is only interested in expensive treatments which will be sold with high margins like luxury products”. The CFTC also criticized “the shameful attitude of our senior managers who prefer to focus on the Olympic Games”, “completely out of step with the reality experienced by employees on the ground”. “Sanofi is also gorging itself on the backs of Social Security” and “Sanofi must be nationalized” to fight against the shortage of medicines and invest in research, said the number one of the Communist Party, Fabien Roussel.
“Research is not a sprint, it’s a marathon, an investment over 10 to 15 years,” recalls Dorothée Bourges, 46, an oncology researcher at the Vitry site. She says she is on her “5th chef in R