Two billion in three years
Renault presented yesterday the plan which will save it 2.15 billion in savings per year by 2023 (but will itself cost a billion). It’s urgent. The ninth global manufacturer (ahead of PSA) ended 2019 in the red of 141 million. His partner Nissan made him lose 3 billion in three months and his share price fell four-fifths in two years.
Without layoffs
Redeployment, voluntary departures … Any dry layoff is excluded from the 14,600 job cuts announced worldwide (out of 179,500, or 8% of the workforce), including 4,600 of the 48,000 jobs in France.
Choisy-le-Roi single closure
Only factory condemned, that of Choisy-le-Roi (250 employees, 30 km from Guyancourt and 60 km from Flins). Caudan (Morbihan) is in “strategic review” (read below). As for Dieppe (Seine-Maritime), threatened, it obtains a reprieve, linked to the future of its beautiful, but rare Alpine. The diamond therefore retains twelve of its thirteen French factories. With 18,540 employees, they only employ a third more than the Dacia factory in Romania.
End of volume race
This is the end of the volume race wanted by Carlos Ghosn, pinned yesterday by Clotilde Dubos, Acting Director General. It earned the Renault-Nissan alliance to be, in 2017 and 2018, the world’s first “manufacturer” (even if the two groups are not integrated like the leaders Volkswagen or Toyota). Renault will reduce its production capacity from 4 to 3.3 million vehicles per year. Clotilde Debos wants less volume and more margin. As did the PSA savior, a certain Carlos Tavares, former right-hand man of Carlos Ghosn.
Concerns in Flins and Maubeuge
The Flins factory will cease all assembly and will be reconverted, when the current Zoe will be replaced in about three years. The CGT ensures that the factory will lose 1,000 jobs there. In Maubeuge (1,600 employees), the “merger” project with Douai (3,100 employees), 80 km away, for the production of a new electric utility vehicle (and other zero-emission vehicles) caused a strike , yesterday.
The hand of the state
Minister Bruno Le Maire, then President Emmanuel Macron had warned: the shareholder State (15% of the capital) will only lend the 5 billion promised to Renault if it does not close any site and commits the French side to innovation and electric. Clotilde Debos gave pledges yesterday, including the announcement of the production in France of an upcoming electric motor. Will this satisfy Emmanuel Macron? It’s not sure. Will this save Renault, with its range in need of the bestseller and its Japanese alliance at half mast? Not sure either.
We are now lending to the president of Renault, Jean-Dominique Senard, after the failure of the merger with Fiat Chrysler, a merger project with Daimler (Mercedes), already a one-time partner of the manufacturer with the diamond.
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