PARIS (AP) — Two Goodyear bosses held captive by workers spent the night inside a factory in northern France that the company wants to close. 
 
 A worker at the Goodyear tire factory guards the human resources chief, Bernard Glesser, left, and the firm's production manager Michel Dheilly, right, who have been blocked from leaving the plant in... (Associated Press) 
 
 Workers of the Goodyear tire factory gather at the plant in Amiens, northern France, Monday, Jan. 6, 2014. Two Goodyear managers, production manager Michel Dheilly and Human Resources director Bernard... (Associated Press) 
 
 The plant, which Goodyear has tried to sell or shutter for five years, has become an emblem of France's labor issues, and the seizure Monday morning of the two managers — the plant's director and human resources chief — resurrected the once-common practice of boss-napping. 
 
 Sylvain Niel, a labor lawyer who has worked on similar issues, said the tactic fell away because any agreements under pressure were later voided in courts. 
 
 "It's a reaction of despair," Niel said. "They have no room to maneuver in the closing of the factory." 
 
 The Amiens plant has an especially contentious past. Goodyear's attempts to close it have been stalled by violent protests with huge tire bonfires, government concerns and France's prolonged layoff procedures. 
 
 Boss-nappings typically have lasted from a few hours to a couple of days. They are punishable under French law by five years in prison and a 75,000-euro ($102,000) fine — as long as the boss goes free in under a week. 
 
 But generally the workers are not prosecuted, and in many cases they have tried to make the manager's time in captivity more comfortable. 
 
 Mickael Wamen, a union leader, told the Courrier Picard newspaper that the managers had refused offers of mattresses and blankets overnight. 
 
 "Things were sometimes animated, sometimes calm, but without any meanness," Michel Dheilly, the captive plant manager, told reporters allowed inside the factory. 
 
 The other captive manager, Bernard Glesser, was less sanguine, saying he would not give any statements under duress. 
 
 Niel said police rarely get involved, hoping to avoid inflaming the situation. 
 
 "These are basically honest people, in despair," he said. ||||| Image caption Bernard Glesser (left) and Michel Dheilly have been held captive at the Goodyear plant 
 
 Workers at a Goodyear tyre factory in Northern France have been holding two managers captive in a dispute over plans to close the plant. 
 
 The director of production at the plant in Amiens, Michel Dheilly and human resources chief, Bernard Glaser have not been allowed to leave the plant. 
 
 Staff and management have been negotiating for years over how to deal with the loss-making plant. 
 
 The union is pushing for a redundancy plan with more generous payoffs. 
 
 Franck Jurek of the factory's works council described the atmosphere at the plant as a "calm". 
 
 "If there is no buyer, (we want) a plan for voluntary redundancies for everyone with loads of money," he said. 
 
 French workers have a history of holding managers captive, although so called "bossnappings" were more common during the height of the financial crisis. 
 
 Companies including, 3M, Sony and Caterpillar were affected in 2009. 
 
 Generally workers have not been prosecuted for holding their bosses captive. 
 
 According to the CGT union, the two managers have been given water and still have their mobile phones. 
 
 "This kind of initiative, always to be condemned, is especially inopportune and counterproductive at a time when we should concentrate on the future of employees affected by the restructuring, after several years looking for a solution," Goodyear said in a statement. ||||| Titan International Inc. Chairman Maurice Taylor has got French backs up with his comments that the country’s workers earn high wages and work short hours. 
 
 In a letter to French Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg declining to reconsider buying a tire plant in the country, he wrote that France can keep its “so-called workers.” Taylor, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 1996, laid out why his company walked away and won’t re-examine buying a plant that Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., the largest U.S. tire- maker, is closing in France. 
 
 “I have visited the factory several times,” Taylor wrote. “The French workforce gets paid high wages but works only three hours. They get one hour for breaks and lunch, talk for three and work for three. I told the French union workers this to their faces. They told me that’s the French way!” 
 
 Montebourg said earlier this month he was dropping efforts to get Quincy, Illinois-based Titan to take over some of Goodyear’s operations in Amiens, in northern France. The move, which has put 1,173 jobs at risk, shows the challenge President Francois Hollande faces in improving French competitiveness as factory operators confront pressure from global markets. 
 
 Photographer: Philippe Huguen/AFP via Getty Images The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. plant in Amiens, France. Close The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. plant in Amiens, France. Close Open Photographer: Philippe Huguen/AFP via Getty Images The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. plant in Amiens, France. 
 
 Hollande is struggling to boost employment in an economy that’s teetering on the brink of recession as more than 3 million people look for work in France, the highest level of joblessness in 15 years. 
 
 “The workers of Goodyear would have considered themselves insulted had the author of the letter been someone credible,” the CGT union said in an e-mailed statement. 
 
 Montebourg Response 
 
 Krista Gray, an investor relations representative at Titan, didn’t immediately return calls seeking comment. Montebourg’s office confirmed it had received the letter. 
 
 In a letter to Taylor dated today and released to the press, Montebourg said, “your comments that are as extremist as they are insulting testify to your perfect ignorance of our country, La France, and its strengths.” 
 
 In the two-page letter evoking La Fayette, the American landing in Normandy that “delivered us from the Nazis in 1944” and “an admiration” for the policies of President Barack Obama, Montebourg sought to show the close ties between France and the U.S. 
 
 He pointed out that Titan could have “learned and gained a lot from a presence in France,” noting that “the company you manage is 20 times smaller than Michelin, the genuinely international French leader, and 35 times less profitable.” 
 
 Goodyear Plan 
 
 Goodyear said Jan. 31 it will close its main French plant and cut its workforce in the country by 39 percent amid labor disputes and plunging auto demand in Europe. 
 
 “Goodyear tried for over four years to save part of the Amiens jobs that are some of the highest paid but the French unions and the French government did nothing but talk,” Taylor wrote, according to the letter published today by Les Echos. 
 
 In December 2011, Titan dropped a two-year-old plan to buy the factory’s farm-tire operations, citing union opposition. 
 
 The CGT union said in its statement that “Titan had never really intended to take over the site and never had an industrial project for the plant.” It said workers suspected all along that Titan considered buying the farm-tire business on condition the passenger-vehicle tires operation was shut down. 
 
 Presidential Candidate 
 
 Taylor, who goes by “Morry,” ran for President in 1996 on the Republican ticket using the slogan “A doer, not a talker,” according to his blog called “grizztalk.” Among recommendations he’s made to President Obama include shutting the Department of Education and dropping sick pay for government employees, according to the company’s website. 
 
 He didn’t mince his words when he told Montebourg why Titan wouldn’t consider reviving its bid for the French operations. 
 
 “Sir, your letter says you want Titan to start a discussion,” he wrote. “How stupid do you think we are? Titan is the one with the money and the talent to produce tires. What does the crazy union have? It has the French government. The French farmer wants cheap tires. He does not care if the tires come from India or China and these governments are subsidizing them. Your government doesn’t care either. ‘We’re French!”’ 
 
 To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Deen in Paris at markdeen@bloomberg.net 
 
 To contact the editor responsible for this story: Vidya Root at vroot@bloomberg.net; Craig Stirling at cstirling1@bloomberg.net
– Furious French workers at a Goodyear tire factory have revived the practice of "boss-napping" and seized two managers amid a dispute over the plant's closure. The site's director of production and human resources chief are being held at the factory and union leaders say they won't be released until workers get a satisfactory response to their requests, which include more generous severance packages, the Wall Street Journal reports. The bosses were held overnight at the plant and refused offers of mattresses and blankets, the AP reports. "Things were sometimes animated, sometimes calm, but without any meanness," one captive plant manager told reporters, while the other said he would not give any statements under duress. Boss-napping was more common during the height of the financial crisis and while it is punishable by up to five years in prison, workers are rarely prosecuted for holding managers captive, the BBC notes.