Placed in receivership in March 2024, the Diva Salon company held an extraordinary social and economic committee (CSE) on September 10 at its Le Coteau site in the north of the Loire. At the end of this meeting, the chairman and CEO of this French sofa manufacturer, Gabriel Dahan, revealed that “marks of interest (from the Parisot groups of Saint-Loup-sur-Semouse, in Haute-Saône, and Ligne-Roset, from Briord, in Ain, Editor’s note) have not materialized. We believe that the next deadline with the court will result in a decision to liquidate the company».
Employees with more than 40 years of seniority
The call launched at the beginning of July by Diva Salon to potential buyers did not result in any offer by the deadline initially set for September 9, then postponed to September 25. On that day, the Loire company will be summoned to a hearing at the Lyon commercial court which must decide on its future. The last 114 employees of one of the last French sofa manufacturers, a specialist in convertible sofas which had more than 700 employees at the beginning of the 1980s, have no illusions.It is the fin“, say some who have more than 40 years of seniority.Tomorrow, we will continue to buy sofas but they will not be French“, lamented Yannick Michaud. The company’s CGT union representative and secretary of the CSE believes that customers ““did not play the game” and that the State “did not know how to protect one of the last manufacturers of French sofas. It is a whole know-how that is going to disappear.»
The owner group is also in difficulty
The mayor of Coteau, Sandra Creuzet-Taite, challenged the new Prime Minister on this issue. During a visit to the company in October 2021, Michel Barnier, then a candidate for the Les Républicains nomination for the 2022 presidential election, had pleaded for “that we do not let entire sections of the industry go” Gabriel Dahan puts forward the figure of 12 million euros invested by the owner group, Market maker, on the Costellois site with a doubling of the workforce and the opening of a training center in 2021 to attract young people to the furniture sector.
Diva salon is the heir to the Belgian company Bekaert which, wishing to diversify its activities, had set up on 11 hectares along the Roanne/Lyon railway line at the end of the 1960s. The Beka France factory then employed 300 workers in the manufacture of metal seats. It then became Diva-France, leader in convertible sofas, at the end of the 1980s, then Diva salon before the takeover, in October 2020, by Market maker, at the bar of the Paris commercial court. The group from Dardilly, near Lyon (Rhône), has been placed under safeguard proceedings since last March.
Source: www.usinenouvelle.com
