In the voluminous offices of the works council at Renault's Cléon factory, members of the main trade union there, the CGT, are mulling over recent developments amid a mood of shock and resignation. A few months ago, the factory's director confirmed reports in the specialist press that the engine for the carmaker's new electric Twingo car will not be made at the site near Rouen in north-west France. Instead, it will be produced at a factory in China.
This decision highlights the gap between Renault's ambitious public announcements on electric vehicles and the reality on the ground. It means that the Cléon plant, which specialises in the production of engine components, will ultimately not be involved in the design and production of the main element of Renault’s entry-level electric car, a vehicle which the company hopes will sell in large numbers. As for the assembly of the vehicles themselves, that will take place in Slovenia.
Yet as Stéphane Viervaux, the CGT secretary of the plant’s works council, points out, Renault Cléon is officially designated as the “reference site for electric engines” within the giant French carmaker. “At the time we received the bad news, Cléon had just been been put into into Ampere, the group’s electric subsidiary. And yet, the first engine that's announced is slipping through our fingers,” sighs the union representative. “Our management isn’t fighting hard enough to bring in work. Talk of reindustrialisation in France is just nonsense,” adds Christine Taffin, a member of the Sud trade union which also represents workers at the factory. According to an internal source at Cléon, the possibility of manufacturing the new engine there was never even considered.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
Thomas Denis, director of the Cléon plant, says he “understands” the concerns, though he does not share them. “We have to understand that developing an engine takes a good three years. And the group has a keen interest in getting a car priced under 20,000 euros on the road quickly,” he explains.
“The Chinese already have an electric engine available,” says the CFE-CGC by way of support. This white-collar trade union, which is known to be close to management, says producing the Twingo in China was a “business decision” aimed at “offering a car at the lowest possible price, and swiftly”. One of its representatives insists: “This does not mean less work for Cléon. Management was clear from the outset about what would be produced in France and what would be produced at Cléon - in the latter case, the mid and high-end ranges.”
Unkept promises
“There's a clear determination within the group to produce abroad,” observes CGT member Stéphane Viervaux, citing the example of the Dacia Spring model, which is already being manufactured in China for financial reasons. According to a source close to the company the “cost of production is twice as high here compared to China”. Factory director Thomas Denis disputes this claim, though he does not provide any figures to back his argument.
“If they don't give the resources for research and development, both in terms of personnel and funding, it's clear we can't deliver an engine in under two years,” says Stéphane Viervaux. Fellow CGT member Nicolas Julien adds: “We've been cutting back on engineering for years, with many leaving the sector since 2021.” And Christine Taffin claims: “We're now bringing Chinese engineers to France.”
Meanwhile further plans for redundancies in the engineering section are reportedly in the pipeline. “No redundancies have been officially announced,” a CFE-CGC union representative makes clear. However, they acknowledge there have been discussions “about the implementation of measures that could be activated if needed in the next three years”. While not denying a potential loss of engineers, the union representative points out that Renault has hired “around 1,400 people” as a result of the “need for new skills related to electric vehicles”.
Factory boss Thomas Denis meanwhile insists they have “everything that's needed to drive the electric revolution”. On November 1st 2023, Renault launched its specialised subsidiary Ampere amid much fanfare, and some of the employees at Cléon saw their contracts transferred to the new entity. Nearly a year on, some concerns have now surfaced. “Ampere was portrayed as the flagship for electric vehicles in France, but now we're hearing that a new entity has been created in Spain,” says Stéphane Viervaux. “At this stage we don't know what will be made there.”
“Ampere was supposed to be based in France,” says David Bellanger, the main CGT union representative for the subsidiary. “Cléon was meant to be the only machine factory producing electric components for all Ampere vehicles. That initial promise has not been kept.”
Falling workforce
The Cléon site is not operating at full capacity. “We’re producing engines for mid and high-end vehicles that are struggling to sell,” observes Nicolas Julien. “The production lines for Mégane and Scenic electric engines were supposed to run in three shifts, but they’re only running one. Our stocks are full,” notes another CGT member, Guillaume Micault. Renault is even renting out some of its workshops at Cléon to other companies.
According to Mediapart's information, the original plan was to manufacture 240,000 Scenic and Mégane electric engines per year, but current production is around 100,000. Following advice from the press officer present during our interview, factory boss Thomas Denis declined to confirm or deny these figures, simply stating that production is “in line with forecasts”.
The inevitable result of this situation is a slimmed-down workforce. At the end of 2018 the plant had 4,039 permanent employees, compared to 2,782 today. The number of temporary workers has reportedly dropped from 1,717 to 301. Thomas Denis acknowledges a “low point” at the end of 2022 but anticipates “better prospects” for the coming years.
The CGT, though, accuses the group's management of being in a state of “denial” about Ampere's economic situation. “They tell us that the workload for French Ampere plants is full. But at Renault Cléon, there are more than 500 people who have no holiday time left or who owe holiday time because they’re being sent home due to a lack of work,” says David Bellanger.
Guillaume Micault also mentions technical difficulties with the production of the engine for the new R5 vehicle, which has led to its market launch being delayed. This engine seems to be the only glimmer of hope as far as the CGT is concerned, even though this planned vehicle will be sold at a higher price than the new Twingo.
The group's stated ambition to cut production costs by 40% by 2027 does not reassure workers either. “That inevitably means fewer workers and more offshoring,” notes the CGT. “I’m 54, with 32 years at the company, and I’m not sure I’ll finish my career here,” says David Bellanger. He is even concerned about the potential closure of the site, which still employs 1,000 people working on combustion engines.
Short-time working
The decision to cancel the planned stock market listing of Ampere at the beginning of the year has done little to ease workers' concerns about the future of electric vehicles. “We have no idea how this market will develop in the coming years. It’s all very fragile and changeable,” comments one engineer within the Renault group. Christine Taffin notes that “electric vehicles require far less work than combustion engines.” The Renault engineer meanwhile predicts: “We’re not going to run sites at half-capacity for fifteen years.”
Such bleak forecasts are dismissed by Thomas Denis. About to leave his post, the Cléon factory's director talks of a “market ripe for conquest” and eagerly points to the “arrival of three new electric engines at Cléon in 2026, 2027 and 2028”. This, according to him, is proof that he has done his job in securing new business.
The director emphasises the “solid foundations” of the plant’s operations, as “two-thirds of its employees work on thermal and hybrid engines, which are super stable businesses”. He talks of ten more years of business for combustion engines at the plant. This contrasts sharply with the CGT’s own forecasts, which note that one of Cléon’s main clients, the Renault plant in Sandouville, located 70 kilometres (just over 43 miles) to the west and producing the group's Trafic van, has begun its electric transition.
A clear sign that there are clouds on the horizon can be found in the discussions that began a few weeks ago over a new productivity agreement at Renault, which is set to take effect from 2025. “The first item on the agenda concerns short-time working,” a union source reveals. According to Mediapart's information, management is considering tightening the conditions over temporary lay-offs; currently, employees lose one day of leave entitlement for every five days not worked, and there are plans to make them contribute even more.
Factory boss Thomas Denis once again brushes off such concerns and insists that no short-time working is planned for the site in the coming months. This only reinforces the impression that two parallel realities exist side by side within one of the largest private employers in this part of France.
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- The original French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter