France demands restart of idled ArcelorMittal furnaces

FLORANGE, France, Sept 27 (Reuters) - France's industry minister called on steelmaker ArcelorMittal on Thursday to make the investment needed to restart idled blast furnaces at its Florange site or put it up for sale.

"The French government has at the highest level insisted, repeated, recalled ... that we want the restart of these two furnaces at Florange that have been idled for 14 months," Arnaud Montebourg told employees at the site in northeastern France.

He urged ArcelorMittal to make investments totalling 150 million euros, adding that if not ArcelorMittal was no longer interested in the site it could be purchased by "any interested industrial operator in the world."