Like an uncontrollable balloon, exasperation continues to swell among Stellantis customers, owners of a C3 or a DS3 equipped with a Takata airbag, purchased before 2020, which, when triggered, risks seriously injure the driver or passenger. There are 258,000 people in France who have received a letter from Stellantis asking them not only to bring their vehicle back to the workshop, but also to “stop driving immediately”the famous “stop drive”demanded by Catherine Bieth, head of the vehicle and engine market surveillance department, at the Ministry of Ecological Transition.
And almost as many of them do not yet have an appointment or a replacement car to resolve their problem. Several thousand of them contacted the consumer association UFC-Que Choisir, deciding its president, Marie-Amandine Stévenin, to send the manufacturer a letter of rare severity. Tuesday, June 25, in the evening, there were 70 present in Marseille − and more than 150 online − to listen to Parisian lawyer Christophe Lèguevaques who wants to launch collective action.
In her letter to Thierry Koskas, general manager of Citroën, Marie-Amandine Stévenin, president of UFC-Que Choisir, calls on him to offer concrete solutions to his customers. “In the absence of a response and satisfactory commitments within one month, UFC-Que Choisir will take all necessary legal action in order to preserve the rights of consumers and defend their collective interest”, she warns. She denounces a “disastrous management of this industrial crisis, although largely predictable”a “disastrous management, to say the least, of this unprecedented recall and immobilization procedure”, a “clear lack of anticipation on the part of the Stellantis group”, A “industrial fiasco”.
The association accuses Citroën, which, like the entire profession, was aware of the accidents and defects which led to the bankruptcy of Takata in 2017, of having “continued the marketing of C3 and DS3 vehicles equipped with these potentially dangerous devices until 2019, without informing consumers”. Violation of the general security obligation, infringement of property rights, the association accuses and orders Stellantis not to skimp on the expense to correct the situation, which it has the means to do, according to it, “having regard to the amount (…) already provisioned, to the tune of almost 1 billion euros, for almost two years now”.
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