Like a symbol, the meeting was set at the Technocentre Renault in Guyancourt (Yvelines), in this giant hive of engineers, this maze of rooms that Luca de Meo wants to shrink, reorganize, revamp. The CEO of the diamond group received The world, while the management had just informed, Thursday, September 16, the trade unions representing the company (CFE-CGC, CGT, CFDT, FO) of its intention to open negotiations with a view to concluding a three-year social agreement (2022- 2024) on the industrial and research and development organization of Renault in France.
The basis of the discussions, supposed to be concluded before the end of 2021, proposes on the one hand the location of nine vehicles in French factories allowing 2,500 recruitments, the production in Cléon (Seine-Maritime) of the future 100 kilowatt electric motor and any its value chain. In detail, the vehicles produced in France will be the electric Mégane and its future SUV version, the electric R5, the new electric Kangoo and a fifth car for the Electricity division of Douai and Maubeuge (North); a new Alpine in Dieppe (Seine-Maritime); the Electric traffic utility in Sandouville (Seine-Maritime); the replacement of the large Master van as well as another vehicle for a partner in Batilly (Meurthe-et-Moselle).
On the other side of the scale, the plan provides for 1,600 departures in engineering in skills related to heat engines, as well as 400 others in support functions and, as in any negotiation of this type, a review of wage conditions and work organization. In other words, the reorganization would result in the net creation of 500 positions. Far from compensating for the 4,600 departures which had been programmed during the May 2020 savings plan and which are in the process of being settled.
” Bad choice “
“We want to establish permanently in France all high added value activities, says Luca de Meo. It is a real new perspective after a difficult period. The company had to be resized to match its economic reality. It must be said: we fell to a production of around 500,000 cars per year in France because bad decisions were made in 2012-2013 with the current Espace, Talisman, Scénic. These are cars that didn’t work. It can happen. This level of production is not out of a desire to disengage – we had nevertheless invested a billion euros in Douai – but it is the result of bad choices. ”
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