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Last car leaves PSA Aulnay plant

Vehicle assembly at struggling carmaker PSA's historic plant of Aulnay-sous-Bois near Paris ends ahead of total closure of the factory next year.

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The last car produced by French auto making group PSA left the assembly line at Aulnay-sous-Bois, putting the lid on 40 years of varied business success at the location in the northeastern suburbs of Paris, reports Deutsche Welle.

The company said the Citroen C3 would find a place of honor in the Conservative Citroen Brand Heritage Center.

Management added the site would continue making spare parts until 2014 while production of the Citroen C3 would be fully transferred to the Poissy plant west of Paris.

The eventual closure of the Aulnay facilitywill come in line with a redundancy plan that was introduced in May 2013, marking the first shutdown of a French car plant in 20 years.

PSA said a total of 2,700 out of 3,000 workers would be redeployed by March 2014. But the company added it was also looking to help re-industrialize the Aulnay site, with the objective of attracting companies that offer jobs aligned with the skills of PSA employees.

Citroen inaugurated the site back in 1973. All in all, over 8.5 million units rolled off the assembly lines there.

Read more of this AFP report published by Deutsche Welle.

See also: PSA plant closure sounds death knell for north Paris sink estate