The French government has ruled out the possibility of temporarily taking control of the Fibre Excellence paper pulp plant in Saint-Gaudens, Haute Garonne, according to recent reports. During an interview on France 2's "4 V" program, Minister of Industry Sébastien Martin rejected the idea of temporary nationalization, responding to calls from Occitanie region President Carole Delga (from the Socialist Party) for state involvement. Delga had urged the government to consider temporary state participation to allow time for an industrial partnership to be formed, as no immediate buyer for the plant had emerged. Martin said he was "not sure that is the most appropriate solution," adding that "temporary does not mean anything," implying that such a measure might not guarantee a resolution. The region criticized the government for not showing enough "mobilization" on the issue. Previously, the region had worked with the Regional Agency for Strategic Investments (ARIS) to attract Soprema, an Alsacian company, to form a "consortium project" aimed at restarting the Saint-Gaudens plant. The region had requested a 15 million euro state contribution to support the effort until a private company could take over. Martin stated that he has been actively seeking buyers since January, and noted that the region had also begun its search this summer. However, both sides had contacted the same potential buyers, with the same lack of success. He expressed openness to "sit around the table" to discuss the plant's future, in response to Delga's complaints about the government's lack of engagement. Martin referenced his own experience with industrial recovery in his constituency of Chalon-sur-Saône, where nine factories were built a few years after the closure of the Kodak plant, which had left 2,500 people unemployed. He emphasized that "one can always bounce back." Fibre Excellence, owned by Indonesian papermaker Jackson Wijaya, entered judicial recovery in April, leading to the closure of its two plants in Saint-Gaudens and Tarascon (Bouches-du-Rhône). The Toulouse commercial court officially declared the liquidation of the Tarascon site on July 29, which employed 270 people. The future of the Saint-Gaudens plant, which also employed 270 workers, will be decided by the commercial court on September 8.