Mistral: 2500 Jobs At Stake, Another Russian Lie


While Russian media claim that postponing the delivery of the Mistral is putting 2500 jobs at stake, only 300 to 400 people are still working on the second Mistral which is finished at more than 60%. Thanks to new huge American orders for civil ships, St nazaire has no concerns about employment.

In addition to that, nobody is asking to halt building it as even oponents to the deal are campaigning to finish building the Mistral and sell both war ships to a country that respects international laws. Russia broke the Budapest Memorandum signed in 1994 earlier this year when it annexed Crimea [1].

RT twists information given by French newspapers


While the French newspaper Le Figaro (that publishes once a week a free supplement financed by the Kremlin [2]) used a misleading title in an article, it was at least offering the almost correct information that "hundreds of people are still working on building the second Mistral".

The Russia Today version volontarily twisted the information into a blasting "One of the French biggest union federations, Workers’ Force, has urged Paris to fulfill the Mistral deal and deliver the two warships to Russia, otherwise 2,500 shipyard employees may lose their jobs." 2500 is in fact the number of people working for STX on all projects. Only a small part of them are still working on finishing the second Mistral.

The article has been shared more than 2500 times as of today and one of its obvious goals is to get French people to support the delivery of the Mistral. The other obvious goal is an attempt to save face from Putin as he is usually the one pressuring, not being pressured. He knows there are now very few chances that he receives the Mistral as stated this morning by French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.

This and other lies in russian media those days is showing how important the Mistral war ships are to Russia despite its denials. More reasons not to deliver them.

STX shipyard's order book full until 2020


Anyway, workers from the shipyard should not worry as the order book of their company is full until 2020. Two additional cruise ships representing a total of 11 million hours of work were added yesterday 04th of Dec at 10:32 pm to the already impressive STX's list of orders.

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd (RCCL) confirmed the order of the " Edge 1 and 2" cruise ships for an amount of 1.2 billion euros. Each of them will be 300 meters long and be able to host 2900 persons. RCCL already ordered twelve ships to STX since 1987 and has two ocean liners beeing built right now in St Nazaire: Oasis III and IV.

With 6 huge ships for a total of 47 million working hours to be built by 2020, STX has definitely no concerns over employment.

According to Laurent Castaing, president for STX Europe's operations, STX has been continuesly hiring the last two years, creating 250 jobs so far.

Not only zero jobs are at stake right now as the second Mistral is still being built and no one expects it to stop even if not delivered to Russia, but the STX shipyards didn't have a full order book for the next 6 years for many years, according to the French union federations.


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[1]: Budapest Memorandum: Russia, the U.S., and the UK confirmed, in recognition of Ukraine becoming party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and in effect abandoning its nuclear arsenal to Russia, that they would:

  • Respect Ukrainian independence and sovereignty within its existing borders.
  • Refrain from the threat or use of force against Ukraine.
  • Refrain from using economic pressure on Ukraine in order to influence its politics.
  • Seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine, "if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used".
  • Refrain from the use of nuclear arms against Ukraine.
  • Consult with one another if questions arise regarding these commitments.
[2]: Russia Beyond the Headlines is sponsored by the Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the Russian government’s official newspaper that receives direct financing from it. RBTH pays newspapers to include its supplements, part of a wider effort by the Russian government to exert soft power that includes heavy investment in international television network Russia Today.

RTBH is published as a supplement in the most influent newspapers around the world: The Washington Post (United States), The New York Times (United States), The Wall Street Journal (United States), The Wall Street Journal (United States), The Daily Telegraph (UK), Le Figaro (France), Le Soir (Belgium), The Economic Times (India), El Pais (Spain), etc.

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