Renault says Europe remains the only region in the world that has yet to fully emerge from the economic crisis that saw large swathes of the automotive industry deeply affected by the downturn.
Addressing delegates at this week’s Nord France Invest automotive conference in Lille, Renault operations director France, Gerard Leclercq, highlighted the severity of the slump, but also pointed to the automaker’s deal with its labour bodies to aid combating the challenges.
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“If you have a snapshot of where we are now, we are facing the crisis, which has been the most important for a long time,” he said at the conference, titled: “The Lille Region, an engine of the European automotive industry.”
“I am not sure we have known a bigger crisis in the past – there has been 25%-28% decrease since 2007. It is the only region in the world that has not overcome the crisis and has not got back on its feet. We recognise it is a very profound, structural crisis.
“We were forced to work on how we can overcome these different elements. We can’t work alone without sharing some strategies.”
Leclercq took time to hail most of Renault’s unions that inked a deal earlier this year committing the automaker to producing at least 710,000 vehicles in France by 2016, compared to 530,000 models last year.
Most of the automaker’s labour bodies signed the agreement that will take the overall utilisation rate of its French facilities to more than 85% and will allow business to continue at the sites until 2016 and up to 2020, although there will be redundancies.
The CGT union declined to add its signature to the deal, although Renault secured approval of its three other main unions, the CFDT, FO and CFE-CGC, a move praised by Leclercq.
“I want to acknowledge the maturity of some of these trade unions,” the Renault operations director told delegates in Lille. “The agreement signed by two-thirds of the staff – we have a different approach in social dialogue.
“If we don’t want to close any plant, we can’t do it by remaining at the same level, we can’t do that without increasing production. We cannot have the same level of production with only 500,000 cars per year.”
Leclercq highlighted his production theme by comparing Renault’s 500,000 annual tally at five French assembly plants to partner, Nissan’s manufacture of almost the same quantity at its UK Sunderland site, with this figure planned to rise to 600,000 cars following a factory upgrade.
“If you look [from a] strictly industrial point of view, we should have closed three or four plants to be at the best competitive level,” said Leclercq.
“In France, with respect to other European constructors, the choice we made was to go through social dialogue to have a win win agreement.”
