BAT to Close Boncourt Factory

BAT will close its Boncourt cigarette factory in Switzerland and move production elsewhere in Europe, reports SWI.

The factory employs more than 200 people, around half of them cross-border workers from France.

The closure will not affect BAT’s Lausanne office, which employs more than 100 other staff.

Boncourt mayor Lionel Maître described the decision as “a shock, a disappointment, a feeling of desperation and a mess.”

The Boncourt factory was founded by the Burrus family in 1814 and was taken over by Rothmans International in 1996 before merging with BAT three years later. In 1887, the site started producing Parisienne, which is the second best-selling cigarette brand in Switzerland.

In 2014, BAT closed a research and development facility in Boncourt with the loss of around 15 jobs.