General Electric To Cut 6,500 Jobs In Europe In Energy Units Acquired From Alstom

General Electric is planning to cut 6,500 jobs in Europe in the next two years in the energy units it acquired from France's Alstom SA last November, the company said Wednesday. GE added that it will stick to its pledge to create 1,000 net new jobs in France in the next three years as part of the acquisition.

"The restructuring plan will touch several European countries and impact potentially 6,500 jobs out of 35,000," a company spokesman told Agence France-Presse. The job cuts includes 765 in France and 1,700 in Germany, Renaud Petitjean, a GE spokesman in Paris, told Bloomberg.

"This is a plan, which could change following discussion with employee representatives," Petitjean said, according to Reuters. He added that unions were informed Tuesday about the cuts and the talks would start Wednesday.

GE acquired Alstom for $9.2 billion in November 2015. The company said at the time that it expected the deal to generate 5 cents to 8 cents of earnings per share in 2016 and 15 cents to 20 cents by 2018.

In September 2015, GE announced that it was planning to move 500 American jobs overseas, citing the expiration of the U.S. Export-Import Bank. The Fairfield, Connecticut-headquartered company said at the time that the jobs will be moving to France, Hungary and China. France would take 400 of them, and China and Hungary will split the remaining 100. Job losses would be seen in Texas, South Carolina, Maine and New York, GE had said.