Moulinex died on 11 September 2001 — France's other September 11

Moulinex, the French appliance maker that had bought Germany's Krups in 1991, went looking for European scale in 2000. In March the Italian group El.Fi — the holding company behind Brandt — took 25 percent of the capital, then 74; on 22 December 2000 the two merged into Moulinex-Brandt. The plan needed money the group did not have: when the restructuring was announced in April 2001, with six plant closures including three in France, the group's debt was at its maximum.

The rescue depended on the shareholder. El.Fi, now at 74.3 percent, refused to subscribe to the recapitalisation needed to finance the restructuring plan. On 7 September 2001 Moulinex-Brandt filed; the commercial court of Nanterre opened receivership proceedings with six months of observation. Four days later — the Tuesday that became the other September 11 — management ordered the total cessation of activity, and 5,600 employees were being dismissed.

The debt stood at seven billion francs at the moment of filing, as the Senate record put it — a disaster not without those responsible. On 22 October the Nanterre court chose Groupe SEB's offer over the American Fidei's: SEB took three quarters of Moulinex's activities, but only 1,850 employees out of 5,600; the other plants closed, and Basse-Normandie, the company's historical cradle, called it a trauma.

The collapse is still told as l'autre 11 septembre. Thierry Lepaon, the CGT delegate who represented the staff on the board, spent ten years writing its memoir — Moulinex, d'un monde à l'autre (Éd. Ouest-France, 2021): 'Two worlds were collapsing: the one we could imagine, and the industrial world with Moulinex. It is not the same tragedy, but we lived both on the same day, at the same hour.' The former employees' own phrase is double peine — two punishments, one morning.