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Scrap metal:
Only 2,600 employees produce the Renault Zoe and Nissan Micra car models in Flins - and 2024 will be over
Photo: MARTIN BUREAU / AFP
As part of its austerity program, the French car manufacturer Renault is converting its large Flins factory in the greater Paris area into a recycling center.
With the so-called Re-Factory, an exemplary system for the circular economy is to be created in Europe, announced the Renault boss
Luca de Meo
(53),
who came from Volkswagen subsidiary Seat in July,
on Wednesday in Boulogne-Billancourt near Paris.
New cars are only expected to roll off the assembly line there until 2024.
The crisis-ridden company announced in the spring that it would cut around 15,000 jobs, of which around 4,600 will be in France.
The three-year austerity program is worth over two billion euros.
Flins, a traditional Renault plant, is expected to produce the Zoe electric car until 2024, as confirmed upon request.
The Renault Zoe is the best-selling electric model in Europe.
After the renovation, the plant will then recycle used cars and batteries, among other things.
At the end of 2019, the plant employed around 2,600 people.
After all, the new task promises a little more jobs: in ten years there should be more than 3,000 employees.
The factory opened in 1952.
As a prisoner of war, the German designer Ferdinand Porsche was involved in the design of the largest French car factory.
At times more than 20,000 employees worked in Flins, the annual production rose to up to 400,000 vehicles.
Since the closure of the historic main plant at the group headquarters in Billancourt in 1992, Flins has been the group’s oldest body shop still in operation.
Car production in France has been cut back sharply for years.
Nonetheless, trade unionists described the closure of Flins as "unthinkable".
The success of the Renault Zoe electric car, which has been built there since 2012, was interpreted as a sign of hope for the future of the plant.
ak / dpa-afx
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