Paris:- Saturday, 8. March 1997:- After losing five billion francs last year, but after making a profit for the ten preceding years, the national automaker, Renault, announced a week ago Thursday the closing of its plant at Vilvorde in Belgium and its intention to lay off the 3,100 workers there next July.

This was a bombshell for Belgium, and on Friday the employees occupied the plant. Despite 1.3 billion francs invested in the Flemish factory by Renault in 1993, union leaders feared closure of the plant within five years - but were surprised by the advanced timing. Belgian workers have been visiting Renault sites in France, and French union leaders have paid visits to Vilvorde.

There have been calls for boycotts of Renault, which will not help its balance sheet. The director of Renault was called into the Elysée Palace for a chat on Thursday of this week, and afterwards confirmed the timetable of the closure.

Meanwhile, autoworkers from Vilvorde were protesting outside Renault's headquarters in Boulogne on Thursday and on Friday a new word entered the multilingual babble of Europe: 'Eurostrike!' Renault plants throughout the entire community stopped for a symbolic hour, while workers from Vilvorde went around to visit the workers of all auto plants in Belgium.

It seems as if one Belgian plant threatens the employment of Renault's other 140,000 employees, and the head of Renault, Louis Schweitzer is not backing down - and is apparently brushing aside union calls for the institution of the 35-hour work week.

He suggested that Renault might find positions for some of the Belgians at a plant in France. The man does not seem to be particularly adept at public relations; and seems to have never heard of Henry Ford's idea of paying his workers enough to buy the cars they make.

Now there is talk of converting the plant to manufacture something else; but I do not think the EU is too keen to help out on this after bending the rules several times already, by permitting the French government to prop up Renault with taxpayer's money.

According to Le Parisien, Renault loses 1,000 francs on every car it sells, no matter where it is made. This includes their cars made in Spain where workers get half the Belgian salary. All car sales in France have fallen drastically in the last two months after the end of government subsidies last fall to pump up sales.

Most potential car buyers think that cars are overpriced in France. Owning a car may not be financially intelligent, but French buyers know that if they can hold off buying a new one for long enough, the government will have to offer some little 'incentives' like it has done twice in the past two years - even though the Prime Minister has said this will not happen.

While all the hoopla was happening in the streets outside factories for the benefit of the evening TV-news, Renault let it be known that it intends to suppress 2,764 jobs in France this year. It is the largest number since 1991. These will be spread over several sites and not hit one single site.

A lot of these layoffs will affect older workers, and the state chips in towards this in the form of funds for pre-retirement. This is about the same as knocking 15,000 francs off the price of a new car, in return for junking your eight-year-old bucket of rust - except - that no new hiring is foreseen. The 20 year-olds will remain un- or underemployed.

I don't expect anybody to be reading this with glee and I am not writing it because it is 'big' news. This is Europe's reality these days and it just seems to go on and on with no end in sight - it also is starting to seem as if governments will only be able to balance their budgets perfectly if nobody works, nobody buys anything, nobody sells anything and nobody gets any benefits; but everybody pays taxes. I say,let the rich do it all.