AMIENS, France — Two Goodyear managers held captive by angry French workers were freed Tuesday after police intervened, ending a two-day standoff over the factory’s bleak future.

The release outraged union members, who made a bonfire of tires in front of the plant. It also left unresolved the larger problems that have dogged the factory in Amiens, which Goodyear has tried to sell or shutter for more than five years. Union leaders said Tuesday that workers would occupy the factory complex until managers negotiate with them over severance pay.

The plant in northern France has become emblematic of the country’s labor tensions. Workers, having failed so far to save their jobs, seized the plant’s director and human resources chief Monday morning to demand bigger severance packages.

A dozen police officers arrived at the plant Tuesday afternoon, and two went inside the facility. Minutes later, the two bosses walked out and got in an unmarked police car. They did not speak to reporters.

Angry and cursing, Mickael Wamen of the CGT union said afterward: “We were told very clearly … that if we didn’t free these two people that dozens and dozens of riot police trucks would be coming from Paris, would go inside, a riot would break out and they would whack us all and we’d all end up in prison.”

With the two men freed Tuesday night, labor leaders turned to one of the few last protest options: occupying the site.

Franck Jurek, another CGT representative, said scores of workers planned to remain on site until managers agree to hold negotiations over severance pay. He said two local government officials told union leaders that the release of the bosses would pave the way for such negotiations.