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Auto recovery plan: why Macron sticks to it

In recent days, it was mainly the Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno le Maire who was at the helm. From Bercy, the man was sketching the outlines of a car recovery plan intended to revive the engine of a bloodless sector, with sales down 48% over the first four months of the year and a stock valued at 400 000 vehicles waiting today to find a buyer. The whole thing is spiced up by the distress of the Renault group, which some French overcapacity factories are today threatened with closure, and which will present a savings plan of two billion euros on Thursday.

Renault has no taboos on factory closings worldwide and in France “, Proclaimed in February the acting chief executive officer of the Renault Group Clotilde Delbos, while the group announced losses of 141 million euros in the 2019 financial year. The health crisis having passed through there since, we can expect at worst.

And from a political point of view, the subject is explosive. For the executive, out of the question to pay the 5 billion in aid provided if the manufacturer does not favor the ” Made in France In the months and years to come.

This Monday morning, we learn moreover that Bercy forced Renault, in which it is a 15% shareholder, to join PSA and Total in the European production project of electric batteries which it had previously sulked. A “battery Airbus” that involves thousands of jobs and Europe’s catch-up with China, which is years ahead in the design of electric vehicles.

Because if the automobile is a matter of economy, it is also a matter of ecology. This explains why the ministry of the same name is involved in history. ” What I wear for this recovery plan is that it is an opportunity to facilitate the purchase of electric vehicles by all French people and (…) an opportunity to help even more French people, including the most modest, to change cars to switch to a cleaner vehicle “ said Minister Elisabeth Borne on France Inter on Sunday.

The data of the problem are therefore the following: we must stimulate the demand for cars in order to give fuel to our industrialists, this even as a period of the most economically uncertain begins which is not the most favorable for the purchase of new vehicles. In addition, the public authorities want to accelerate the ecological transition by favoring so-called clean models, starting with the electric ones which, if they know a constant progression, still struggle to seduce the masses. They are still expensive, and the charging infrastructure, both in condominiums and on the highway, still needs to be expanded. Again, the authorities will have to find a way to stimulate the development of these terminals.

Therefore, we understand better why it is the host of the Elysee itself who is about to take the place of the pilot, fortified by the preparatory work carried out by the ministers mentioned above. ” This plan has different components: industrial sovereignty, transition to clean vehicles, and also aims to preserve the competitiveness of the sector“Said an Elysian source cited by the AFP. ” It is the president who will bring the sector plan to its level“Because there is a”industrial issue, an issue of jobs and transformation of the sector towards the transition and conversion to clean vehicles

Concretely, this should translate for individuals (and companies) by the most attractive incentives. There is indeed talk of a purchase bonus increased from 6,000 to 8,000 € for electric cars, the application of a bonus for plug-in hybrid models (more and more numerous in the ranges of manufacturers French) or even a higher conversion premium. The most virtuous thermal models should not be forgotten, so as to sell off the stocks mentioned above. And we can expect other announcements, even more resounding.

These are the foundations of a “big bang” that will be laid this week, for a sector which, in general opinion, is currently playing its survival. And a sector which, together with direct and indirect jobs, occupies 8% of the working population in France.

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