Carlos Ghosn is no longer there, a refugee in Lebanon. But its specter still hangs over Renault. Thus, by presenting this Friday morning the manufacturer’s plans to rebound by 2022, Renault’s general manager, Clotilde Delbos, launched: “today we are paying for the volume policy decided by the previous management (Carlos Ghosn, Editor’s note). We have structural costs cut for growth that has not taken place. The objective of this savings plan is simple. It involves rebuilding the foundations of financial performance and ensuring the sustainability of the business. “
Pressure from the government, which has still not signed the decree carrying the bank guarantee for its 5 billion euro loan request, has prompted the Boulogne-Billancourt firm to soften the measures in its savings plan. Admittedly, it still covers two billion euros over three years, a reduction of 20% in its fixed costs. The French automaker plans to cut 15,000 jobs worldwide, including 4,600 in France, which represents around 8% of the group’s 180,000 employees.
But if Clotilde Delbos assured in February that there would be “no taboos”, there was one: the dismissal dry. There will not be any, the group’s leadership promised to the trade unions, during a group social and economic committee (CCSE) of the group, Thursday 28 May. The workforce must be reduced according to voluntary departures, non-replaced retirements and internal mobility or retraining measures.
The shareholder state on the lookout
As a 15% shareholder of the car manufacturer, the State has obtained the guarantees for the job it wanted. During his interview with the president of the group Jean-Dominique Sénard, at the beginning of the week, Emmanuel Macron had been very clear: a company as emblematic as Renault has to limit social disruption while France has sunk into the crisis with the pandemic from Covid-19.
During his speech at the Valeo factory in Étaples (Pas-de-Calais), the President of the Republic even insisted on giving human resources lessons to the management of the Rhombus while threatening: “I ask that all Maubeuge and Douai employees can have all the guarantees on their future, their ability to produce, and to work in the Renault group […]. The five billion euro loan will depend on the outcome of the talks. “
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Choisy-le-Roi, the only closed site in France
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-Several sites are concerned in France by the savings plan which will have a cost of 1.2 billion euros. The only closed factory will be that of Choisy-le-Roi (Val-de-Marne), which employs 260 people. “Contrary to what has been written here and there, we will only close one site by 2022, out of our 14 industrial sites in France, this is Choisy for which we will promote skills in the Paris region”, said the group’s president, Jean-Dominique Sénard. Choisy’s engine and gearbox repair activity must therefore be transferred to the Flins plant in the Yvelines region. This will stop the assembly of vehicles at the end of life of the Zoe, by 2024. The 2,600-employee plant will be converted into a circular economy and engineering center, with a gradual decline in its workforce at 1,600 employees. The workforce of the Guyancourt Technocentre (Yvelines), which employs 11,000 people, will be reduced by around 1,500 people.
The manufacturer plans to merge the two sites in Maubeuge and Douai in order to create a center of excellence for electric and light commercial vehicles. As for the Foundry of Brittany, where 385 employees work in Caudan (Morbihan), its fate remains pending with a “strategic review” announced. Ideally, Renault would like to sell it. He still has to find a buyer. For the Dieppe plant (Seine-Maritime), consideration will be given to “a conversion project at the end of production of the Alpine 110”.
Worldwide, Renault’s production capacities will be reduced from 4 to 3.3 million vehicles, on a two-team basis. The manufacturer suffers from a huge problem of production overcapacity. “In France, we have the capacity to manufacture 1,080,000 vehicles per year and we produce 655,000,” says Jean-Dominique Sénard. Abroad, the Losange will suspend plans to extend factories in Morocco and Romania. He plans to reduce its production capacities in Russia, mechanical activities in South Korea and the manufacture of gearboxes in Turkey.
Renault can disappear, you have to be lucid (Bruno Le Maire)
With this plan, the Boulogne-Billancourt firm prepares the ground before arrival on 1er July of its new managing director, the Italian Luca de Meo, who came from the Spanish Seat. It is moreover not excluded that this one decides to harden it. “This plan is the first stone, Luca de Meo will bring his strategic vision”, believes Clotilde Delbos. It is notably he who will decide the fate of the Alpine brand within the Renault galaxy, while the Dieppe factory produces less than 10 a day today. In Seat, Luca de Meo successfully launched the brand sporty Cupra.
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The hour is serious for Renault. In the red in 2019 for the first time since 2008 – its loss reached 141 million euros last year -, the manufacturer needs to renew its models which will arrive at the end of the cycle. However, the development of a car can take up to four years. “Renault can disappear, we must be lucid,” said this week on Europe 1 Bruno Le Maire.
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