Pressure is piling on Olaf Scholz as manufacturing industry pays the price for energy shortages
Few of the 34,000 inhabitants in Saarlouis can remember what it was like before the Ford plant opened on the outskirts of town.
The carmaker has been one of the largest employers in Saarland – a tiny German region on the border with France – for 50 years. Its presence has been a source of well-paid jobs and local pride.
“I convinced my whole family to buy our cars. My cousin bought a Ford, my brother bought a Ford, my father bought a Ford. I even talked my wife who was then my girlfriend into buying a Ford,” says 31-year-old Michael Bartuew.
