Two executives detained by workers in France in a protest over the closure of their factory were freed today after the group agreed to re-open negotiations.

In the latest case of bossnapping in France, Marcus Kerriou, the co-director of Molex Automotive, and Coline Colboc, the personnel manager, were held for more than 24 hours by unionists who want the firm to invest in the plant and then sell it as a going concern.

But Mr Kerriou said: "There is no question of negotiating in this situation of sequestration. We've slept two hours, we're tired, but the answer is 'no' as long as we're held against our will."

The conflict comes with Molex, the US-based electronic components manufacturer, planning to shut the factory near Toulouse in south west France with the loss of 283 jobs.

It is the latest in a string of bossnappings, mostly involving French subsidiaries of multinational businesses.

Managers at Sony, the Japanese electronics giant, 3M, the American scotch-tape manufacturer, Caterpillar, the US heavy equipment specialist, and Scapa, the British glue maker, have all been held hostage over redundancy plans this year.

In a separate incident, workers at Continental, the German tyre maker, ransacked French government offices in eastern France after a court refused to block the closure of their factory today.

After Molex sought a court injunction against Denis Parise, the Works Council representative, unionists liberated Mr Kerriou and Mrs Colboc.

They said the firm had agreed to discuss union demands that Molex invest E100 million in the site before selling it.

The protestors said Molex is using the recession as a pretext to carry out a long-standing plan to close the Toulouse plant and transfer production to its factories in the US.

They also claim that stock has been transferred to a site in the Netherlands in a move to run down the French operation.

But Mr Kerriou said: "The scale of the crisis has forced Molex to cut its global workforce by 8,250 whilst trying to treat staff as well as possible."

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