Film featuring ex-Ispat workers in Ireland may make French employees nervous

Documentary makers say steelworkers in France whose futures look uncertain will “probably feel very nervous” when they see how employees were treated by one of the world’s richest men after he closed a plant in Co Cork in 2001.

The TV programme team spent several days in Cobh chronicling the closure of the Irish Ispat plant by Lakshmi Mittal whose wealth, according to Forbes magazine, is in the region of €12bn.

The Haulbowline plant’s 450 workers received only statutory redundancy and noses were further rubbed in it afterwards when the Indian-born tycoon spent more than €50m on his daughter’s wedding reception, renting the Palace of Versailles for the occasion.