Alcatel said that due to an "unprecedented crisis" in the global submarine network market and a sharp decline in fibre optics operations, it is introducing measures for the optics business - including job cuts - which form part of previously announced group-wide restructuring.
It said the global submarine network market is expected to decline over 80 per cent in the period 2000-2002 while the fibre optics market will fall 60 per cent.
The measures include the closure, by end-2003, of the Conflans Sainte-Honorine plant in the Yvelines department near Paris, with the loss of 290 jobs and 90 transfers to other facilities.
Some 280 of 745 jobs in the Calais submarine operation will be lost, along with the loss of 70 jobs out of 830 in Ormes, both by end-2003.