The LIP factory, based in Besançon in eastern France, was having financial problems in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and management decided to close it. However, after strikes and a highly publicized occupation of the factory in 1973, LIP became worker-managed. All the fired employees were rehired by March 1974, but the firm was liquidated again in the spring of 1976. This led to a new struggle, called "the social conflict of the 1970s" by the daily newspaper Libération.