Car maker Renault is struggling to survive

French automaker Renault is in a serious crisis. For French finance and economics minister Bruno Le Maire, it is even a threat to their existence: “Renault is struggling to survive,” he told the newspaper “Le Figaro” yesterday, Friday. The group has applied for a state-guaranteed loan of five billion euros: “I have not yet signed this loan.” The government is asking Renault to “make commitments in three areas: electric vehicles, respect for their suppliers, and localization of their most technologically advanced activities in France.” The French state, with 15 percent, is still the largest shareholder in Renault.

Le Maire also emphasized that Renault’s large Flins factory in the Parisian green area should not be closed: the “Clio” is manufactured there. One now waits for the suggestions of the Renault chairman. “There is an urgent need for action,” he warned. “Renault can disappear, the big industrial manufacturers can disappear.” According to the minister, he never concealed the seriousness of the crisis. Renault is reported to plan to launch a billion-dollar savings program next week. Renault’s problems began long before Corona: The lead that Renault had with the “Zoe” in the field of e-mobility was also wasted: ex-CEO Carlos Ghosn preferred to try to overtake VW and Toyota by all means and was the strongest in terms of sales To become the world’s automaker. As a result, profitability declined: the company already made a loss in 2019. At the beginning of 2019, Ghosn was fired from Renault: among other things, he is accused of having personally enriched himself.

The corona pandemic and the related slump in sales led to the exacerbated crisis. Generally speaking, Le Maire said, “I have no qualms about saving our businesses. What other solution is there? To face hundreds of thousands of layoffs? That would have been fatal to our economy.”