French carmaker Renault is planning to shut down production of its Clio model in Spain and Slovenia but the car will still be made in France, a company executive said Wednesday.
“We plan to stop production of the Clio in Spain and Slovenia,” Patrick Pelata, Renault’s chief operating officer, told reporters after a meeting with Industry Minister Christian Estrosi.
Renault has come under heavy pressure from the French government to keep jobs at home following press reports about a planned shift of Clio production from France to Turkey.
Pelata said no decision has been made on beefing up Renault’s assembly lines in Turkey.
“No decision has been taken because it is not yet time to make decisions,” he said. “In any case, the Clio will be produced in Flins (near Paris), regardless of what happens, and that is very clear.”
Government measures taken last year to support the auto sector in the economic downturn included generous loans to car makers on condition that they keep production and jobs in France.
“We’re not giving all that money to support the auto sector so that all our factories can leave to go abroad,” President Nicolas Sarkozy told members of parliament at an Elysee meeting on Wednesday.
“I strongly contest the idea that these big companies, just because they are global, no longer have a nationality.”
Government spokesman Luc Chatel said Sarkozy would meet Renault chief executive Carlos Ghosn “very soon” on the Turkey issue.
France’s number two car maker, Renault also makes the Clio at its plant in Flins, in the western Paris suburbs, and Bursa in Turkey.
Some 8,000 Clios rolled off the assembly lines of the Valladolid plant in Spain from January to June last year, destined mostly for the Spanish and Portuguese markets.
About 17,000 Clio II models were also manufactured in the Novo Mesto factory of Slovenia in the first six months of last year, according to Renault.
Over the past decades, France, which prides itself as an industrial powerhouse, has seen many of its plants move to Asia and elsewhere where production costs, in particular labour and taxes, are much lower.
