PSA has long prided itself on having been less of a relocator than Renault and has, at times, used this as an argument to get the state to arbitrate in the direction that best served the company's interests. For the moment, by adding a French gigafactory to the Chinese one, backed up by the manufacture of the first European mass-produced battery electric vehicle in France, Renault is in the lead.
Renault-Nissan had initiated a movement at the end of 2020 that seemed to give substance to the proposals of President Macron who, on 26 May, declared at the Valeo factory in Etables that the objective of one million clean cars "made in France" should be aimed for by 2025.
By implying from his arrival in September that he wanted an affordable electric vehicle to be assembled in France, Luca de Meo had sent a powerful signal: while the increasing purchases of battery electric vehicles and imported rechargeable hybrids competing with the Zoé and the Peugeot or DS seemed to contradict the ambitions of May 2020 in the French foreign trade statistics, the announcements concerning the Mégane E-Tech and then the R5 and Micra came month after month to reinforce the credibility of the French ambitions. lire la suite
