AFP - A 3M industrial conglomerate manager was released Thursday after being held for more than a day by angry French workers trying to force their US employer to improve their redundancy package.
   
Following hours of talks between representatives of labour unions, 3M-Sante and 3M France, the laboratory manager of the company's factory in Pithiviers, 85 kilometres (50 miles) south of Paris, left the office where he had been held since Tuesday afternoon.
   
"We have an agreement with 3M to provide funds to respond to our demands," said union representative Jean-Francois Caparros.
   
The factory, which produces pharmaceutical products, employs 235 people but 110 of these jobs are to be shed this year due to falling orders and another 40 are to be shifted to another plant.
   
The detention came less than two weeks after workers held the boss of Sony France hostage overnight before freeing him after he agreed to reopen talks on their pay-off when the factory closed.
   
There have been several cases of executives being held hostage over the past year by French workers outraged at learning that their jobs were being slashed.
   
Last week angry tyre factory workers burst into a management meeting and pelted their bosses with eggs to protest the closure of their plant.