Four of the firm's executives were detained by their employees in a protest over redundancy pay, according to the Times.
Caterpillar is making 733 job cuts in France. Unions want a minimum €30,000 in redundancy pay but Caterpillar is only prepared to pay €10,000
Nicolas Polutnik, the director of the group's factory in Grenoble, south east France, was held along with three senior managers, according to unions demanding a renegotiation with management.
A fifth manager chose to stay with them even though he was free to go.
This is the third incident of "bossnapping" in a month, according to the paper.
Benoi Nicolas, representative of the left-wing Confederation Generale du Travail union, said: "We are holding them in the director's office and we are talking with them so that they agree to open a works council meeting un unblock the negotiations.
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