The French National Assembly, the lower house of the French parliament, has passed the bill to nationalize ArcelorMittal France, the largest steelmaker in the nation, in a vote held overnight from Thursday 27 to Friday 28 November 2025, Fastmarkets learned.
The bill was backed by the left-wing groups in the Assembly, and opposed by parties supporting the government, but passed by 127 votes to 41, a result its authors describe as a political signal on the future of steelmaking in France.
Since it is a parliamentary initiative, however, and not a government bill, the text now moves to the Senate, where a conservative majority is expected to reject or heavily amend it, and ministers have repeatedly stressed that the executive remains firmly opposed to nationalization.
ArcelorMittal’s position
When contacted by Fastmarkets, ArcelorMittal stressed that the nationalization of its assets “would in no way resolve the challenges faced by the steel industry in France and Europe.”
“The European steel market is flooded with massive low-priced imports, which have a devastating effect on European producers. Europe must defend its steel market and swiftly implement the trade defense measures announced in October, as well as an effective carbon border adjustment mechanism [CBAM],” the company’s statement, seen by Fastmarkets, reads. “Changing ArcelorMittal’s shareholder structure would do nothing to address these structural issues – quite the opposite. Breaking up French assets and separating them from the rest of the group would only severely worsen their situation.”
In March 2025, the company launched a major maintenance program worth more than €270 million ($314 million) at its two main French sites, including a three-month shutdown of the largest blast furnace at Dunkirk, on France’s north coast, against a backdrop of delays in a €1.8 billion decarbonization project for the same site.
In May 2025, the company reconfirmed its decarbonization plan for its French assets after several months of uncertainty, but other green investments in Europe remain on hold.
“Over the past five years, ArcelorMittal has invested approximately €1.7 billion in France. Recent investments have included a ladle furnace at Fos-sur-Mer on the south coast (€76 million) and a new electrical steel production unit soon to start operations in Mardyck on the north coast, representing ArcelorMittal’s largest investment in Europe in the past 10 years (€600 million),” the statement reads.
Trade unions and left-wing parties, however, criticize what they see as chronic under-investment in French facilities and argue that job cuts and postponed green investments are inconsistent with the public support and subsidies the group has received in France and at EU level.
ArcelorMittal’s assets in France
ArcelorMittal runs several assets in France and is the largest steelmaker in France and in Europe.
ArcelorMittal Dunkirk has capacity to produce around 7 million tonnes of pig iron per year and over 6.5 million tpy of crude steel. The asset is focused on hot-rolled coil (HRC) production.
ArcelorMittal Fos-sur-Mer can produce 5 million tpy of pig iron at two blast furnaces and around 5 million tpy of crude steel. The facility produces HRC and cold-rolled coil (CRC).
The company, however, pointed out that both facilities have been working at reduced rates recently.
“Our major sites in Dunkirk and Fos-sur-Mer deliver less than 30% of their production to France, due to the deindustrialization that has affected our country.
“Without European customers and without other ArcelorMittal companies to which we supply steel, our sites would be in a far more precarious position,” a company spokesperson told Fastmarkets.
The Florange site, northeastern France, can produce up to 2.8 million tonnes of flat steel products a year, including hot-rolled, cold-rolled, galvanized coil and tinplate.
The Mardyck site is equipped with pickling and cold-rolling mill and two galvanizing lines. Estimated yearly output at the site is over 3 million tonnes of flat steel products.
The Desvers site, in the north, can produce around 400,000 tonnes of galvanized coil per year.
The Basse-Indre site, in the west, produces tinned and electrolytic chromium steel coils and sheets.
The Montataire site, north of Paris, has three galvanizing lines and one organic coating line, with a total capacity of over 1 million tonnes of coated coil per year.
And the Mouzon site, in the northeast of the country, has two lines to produce corrosion-resistant flat steel products.
Through its Industeel subsidiary, the group operates plate mills at Le Creusot, eastern France, and Châteauneuf, in the south, EAF-based facilities that make heavy steel plate and forged blocks for demanding industries; facilities that have recently been certified under the ResponsibleSteel standard.
EU Steel market challenges
Earlier this year, ArcelorMittal announced massive job cuts across French assets due to poor fundamentals, Fastmarkets reported.
The European steel sector continues to struggle amid rising production costs, growing pressure from low-priced imports from Asia, and a worsening demand-supply imbalance, industry sources told Fastmarkets.
And ArcelorMittal is not alone in planning workforce reductions. In April 2025, Tata Steel Netherlands announced plans to cut 1,600 jobs, Fastmarkets reported.
In November 2024, Germany’s largest steelmaker, Thyssenkrupp, announced plans to reduce its steel output and cut around 11,000 jobs to adapt to the fundamental changes taking place across the European steel market.
At the end of October 2025, ThyssenKrupp had already idled one BF in Duisburg, West Germany, in response to deteriorating market conditions in Europe, Fastmarkets reported.
Apparent demand for flat steel in Europe saw a brief uptick between late July and early August, driven by restocking, expectations surrounding the implementation of the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), and anticipation of tougher steel safeguard measures scheduled to reshape import flows in 2026.
By September, however, prices had leveled off and European mills struggled to secure further increases due to weak end-user demand.
In mid-October, shortly after the European Commission proposed a new, stricter trade regime to replace existing steel safeguards, European mills began announcing price increases for HRC for first-quarter delivery.
Under the proposal, only 18.3 million tonnes of steel per year would be allowed into the EU tariff-free; any volumes above that threshold would incur a 50% duty. For context, EU carbon steel imports totaled 26.36 million tonnes in 2024, up by 6.4% from 24.78 million tonnes in 2023, according to Eurofer.
The price increases, announced in late-October by European flat steel producers, were only partially accepted by the market, which, however, allowed steelmakers to secure some volumes for the first quarter. Despite muted trading activity in the past few weeks, CBAM and safeguard uncertainty have been sustaining European HRC prices. Local mills were comfortably booked and were quite optimistic regarding first-quarter price developments, expecting CBAM and safeguards to further limit import activities.
Fastmarkets’ daily steel hot-rolled coil index domestic, exw Northern Europe moved marginally to €615.00 per tonne on November 28, down by just €0.17 per tonne from €615.17 per tonne on November 27.
The index was up by €2.92 per tonne week on week and by €12.95 per tonne month on month.
Julia Bolotova, Todor Shishkov
