**General Motors (GM) has confirmed that it plans to cut 10,000 jobs across its European car unit Opel, which includes the Vauxhall brand in the UK.**The announcement comes a day after GM said it was cancelling its September agreement to sell Opel to Canadian car parts firm Magna.
The planned 10,000 redundancies is broadly similar to the amount Magna had said it was aiming to cut.
Earlier GM’s decision to keep Opel was welcomed in the UK but angered Germany.
Opel employs a total of 54,000 workers across Europe, with 25,000 based in Germany.
In the UK, its Vauxhall brand employs 5,500 people across two plants in Luton and Ellesmere Port.
‘Ugly face’
Earlier GM’s decision to hold onto Opel and Vauxhall was welcomed as a “fantastic decision” by Tony Woodley, the leader of the UK’s Unite union, and himself a former Vauxhall worker.
However, unions in Germany said workers would begin walk-outs from Thursday in protest at GM’s decision.
Meanwhile, the German government, which had backed the sale of Opel to Magna, has demanded GM repay a 1.5bn euro ($2.2bn; £1.3bn) loan.
German leaders and labour unions had favoured a sale to Canadian car parts maker Magna, as the best way to save German jobs as it included a guarantee that no German factory would be closed.
Juergen Ruettgers, premier of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, where there are fears that the Opel plant in Bochum could now face closure, called GM’s decision to hold onto Opel as “the ugly face of turbo-capitalism”.