Renault is insisting its decision to site new engine production at its Romanian subsidiary will not cost French jobs.
The automaker was responding to French reports that the start of H4 engine manufacture at its Pitesti plant near Bucharest could affect employment in France – a view it vehemently contests – with H5 production destined for Spain.
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Renault announced its latest industrial plan in February, which envisaged no site closures in France including that of Douvrin, which produces the D4 engine.
“There are no job implications – the industrial plan stands absolutely,” a Renault spokeswoman in Paris told just-auto. “These are two new engines and actually, one was announced a couple of months ago in Romania.
“Unfortunately [a newspaper] talked about de-localisation – it is new engines and the current engines made in the French site continue to be produced.”
The H4 and H5 engines are three and four-cylinder powertrains which will be produced from 2013 and 2012 respectively.
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By GlobalDataThe H5 version will be made at Renault’s Spanish factory of Valladolid.
It appears the issue is bound up with increasing speculation concerning next year’s Presidential elections in France, which will see current incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy have to go to the polls.
Any announcement by French companies they will start manufacturing outside France seems to provoke a media storm as industrial capacity – and any potential job implications – becomes an ever-stronger election issue.
