Renault will turn a French car plant into a recycling center

PARIS – Renault stop assembling new cars at its Flins factory outside Paris and turn the website into a research, recycling and mechanic shop by 2024 in a move set in order to save full-time jobs at the plant, the company said on Wednesday.

The loss-making carmaker said it aimed to use 3,000 people in the revamped site by 2030, and billed the makeover as a way of saving a website that might well be threatened because the group narrows its focus on profitable car models and cuts costs.

“The status quo wasn't any longer possible, we had to become lucid about this,” Renault Chairman Jean-Dominique Senard told an online news conference after ending up in unions at Flins, between new Chief Executive Luca De Meo.

Renault, which had been struggling with waning profitability and sales before the coronavirus pandemic hit, has this year announced 4,600 job cuts in France included in a 2 billion euro ($2.4 billion) financial savings plan.

Unions said their proposals to help keep on some car assembly activities within the longer run had been turned down.

The company will continue to make its electric Zoe models at Flins until 2024, and can unveil its new activities in the meantime. Included in this are refitting cars, for example those employed for long-term leases, creating a group to work on electric battery innovations and recycling car parts.

Staff could be retrained, De Meo said, without giving information on the budget.

The 3,000 jobs will include staff in the nearby Choisy-le-Roi plant, with a workforce of 260 but is earmarked for closure, while Flins currently employs 2,400 permanent workers.

But additionally, it regularly works with many temporary staff, some 1,400, and it is unclear what would occur to these workers. De Meo said Flins might be exposed to other companies, that could create more jobs for that plant.

Renault said the guarana plant would be equipped to turn out 130,000 refitted cars a year by 2030.