A major French union has described production of today’s (25 October) last vehicle at PSA Peugeot Citroen’s Aulany plant as ’emotional’ as the reality of the automaker’s restructuring plan kicks in.
The Aulnay site will continue to produce spare parts on its body in white line until 2014 while assembly of the Citroën C3 will now be transferred fully to the Poissy plant, west of Paris.
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That final C3 will be delivered to the Conservatoire Citroën brand heritage centre.
Since the Aulnay redundancy plan was introduced earlier this year, a total of 2,700 employees out of 3,000 have been redeployed or have started the redeployment process.
Of these, 1,100 are covered by in-placement, 1,100 by out-placement and 500 by retirement or out-placement leave. The employee redeployment period is scheduled to end on 31 March, 2014.
“Of course, the fact a factory closes, it is clear it unleashes emotions,” Confederation Francaise des Travailleurs Chretiens (CFTC) union leader, Franck Don, told just-auto from France.
“It is a very big emotion because we are in the middle of losing our businesses. The loss of French industry is a problem.
“It is absolutely symbolic because it is a very long time producing cars at Aulnay.”
The CFTC leader added despite the Aulnay closure, there were plans to re-industrialise the site, with businesses such as ID Logistics moving in from 2015 employing 590 staff, while scrap companies are also thought to be interested.
Citroën inaugurated the Aulnay-sous-Bois plant in 1973 on a 170-hectare site in the north-eastern suburbs of Paris, located near the A1, A3 and A104 motorways.
In 1976, Aulnay became a PSA Peugeot Citroën site after Peugeot acquired Citroën from Michelin.
The plant has produced a total of 8,568,391m vehicles.
