Sunday Times 2
Terminate the tycoon
A video game in which players try to ‘kill’ British-based steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal has been released in France.
In the online game, players hurl barrels and rocks at police outside the loss-making steel blast furnaces in Florange, eastern France, which the Indian tycoon closed down.
The Indian billionaire himself appears in the futuristic game as a robot who must be bludgeoned to death.
A text on the screen reads: ‘The year is 2030. Mittal has closed the majority of steel factories worldwide, tossing out thousands of steelworkers.
‘For these men tired of unfulfilled promises and repeated closures, when all mediation has failed, there is just one solution: Kill Mittal.’ Once the Mittal robot is defeated, however, the game finally reminds the player that although Mittal has been killed, he will quickly be replaced by someone similar.
Tycoon blast: The new online game sets out to kill billionaire steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal. The game, which sees players attack the recently closed steel blast furnaces in Florange, eastern France, has been viewed as a result of Mr Mittall's decision to close the plant
The game’s creator Alexandre Grilletta has insisted it is simply a ‘bit of fun’ and not meant to incite violence, adding: ‘The Florange protests just had the right ingredients of heroes and baddies to make a good game.’
The Mittal row began in December when the boss of the Arcelor Mittal steel conglomerate announced he was axing 630 jobs at the Florange plant, blaming lack of demand from the vehicle industry.
When President Hollande threatened to nationalise the factory, Mr Mittal called his bluff by threatening to close down all his operations in France, where his company employs 20,000 people.
A deal was finally struck where Mr Mittal could close down two blast furnaces in Florange as long as he promised to find new jobs for the redundant workers.
But it ended with France’s industry minister Arnaud Montebourg annoucing on live TV: ‘I have to tell you that Lakshmi Mittal is using blackmail and lies. Quite simply, we don’t want him in France anymore.’
Critics have condemned the new video game , which can be found at www.killmittal.com, as glorifying the militancy of French unions – which many blame for the decline of the country’s once mighty industrial sector.
French daily Le Figaro said: ‘It is hardly in the spirit of flexible unions that work with management to keep their factories open.’
Socialist President Francois Hollande pledged when he took office a year ago to revive France’s ailing industrial base – but the latest figures show the country’s economy had no growth in 2012 and shrank by 0.8 per cent in the first three months of 2013.Unemployment is already at a 30-year high of 10.5 per cent and forecast to rise to 11.6 per cent next year.
And with Mr Hollande’s popularity now at 25 per cent – the lowest of any Gallic leader in 50 years – the chief economist at France’s AXA insurance group Eric Chaney has compared his predicament to that of Alice in Wonderland when she meets the Queen of Hearts down a rabbit hole. In the book, the Queen tells Alice: ‘My dear, here we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere, you must run twice as fast as that.’
Mr Chaney added: ‘The situation is much worse in France in the past year. Italy and Spain are implementing reforms. France is doing nothing.
‘So it is getting closer to the periphery of weaker European nations. What the queen said to Alice applies to France.’
© Daily Mail, London
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