“Un nouveau signal du déclin de l’auto française.” Regarding the change of purpose decided by Stellantis and announced in recent days for the Poissy plant, a historic factory (founded in 1937) on the outskirts of Paris, Le Monde dedicated nothing less than an editorial to it, seeing in it yet another sign of the decline of the French car industry.
In reality, the factory in France fared quite well, or at least better than expected, because now it has reassurances about its industrial future: no more cars, but from 2028 its lines will produce components while its warehouses will carry out refurbishment and recycling activities for used vehicles.
However, the issue is another: since last autumn there has been grumbling in France claiming that the alternation in leadership between Carlos Tavares and Antonio Filosa has effectively ended up disadvantaging French plants.
STELLANTIS REDESIGNS ITS GEOGRAPHIES
Not in favor of Italian plants, of course. Where the new Stellantis will go and how much it will invest in Europe will only be known in a few weeks, when on May 21st, from the USA, the curtain will rise on the industrial plan of the Italo-French Group, the first of the Filosa era.
The signals for the Old Continent are not encouraging: choosing the American market, after having announced the intention to allocate as much as 13 billion dollars to those activities, suggests that European hubs will have to share the crumbs. Also because recently Stellantis has accelerated production in its factories in North Africa (in Morocco and Algeria) which could in the near future take models away from those in Eastern Europe.
Conversely, in European plants losing orders, according to rumors, Chinese brands with which Stellantis is considering possible partnerships could soon arrive. However, as mentioned above, it could have been worse for the historic French hub, considering that for some time the Paris Saint-Germain management has been courting the car manufacturer, convinced that the site would be ideal for building the PSG stadium.
WHAT POISSY PRODUCES
The Poissy plant, which under PSA mainly produced the Peugeot 208 and DS models, had benefited from an investment of 150 million euros to allow the necessary updates for the production of electric cars based on the eCMP platform. But electric cars, as is known, have not had the sales success that was expected.
After the merger with Stellantis, Poissy continued to produce DS (currently the DS3) also adding the Opel Mokka: in total it produces 420 units per day. Too many for vehicles that do not enjoy particular appeal either in Europe or in their respective reference markets (namely France and Germany). Moreover, the unions were alarmed because the Mokka is now nearing the end of its life cycle but no further information about new models to be produced had arrived at the factory.
IS THE FRENCH SITUATION FOLLOWING THE ITALIAN ONE?
And while in Italy some have counted that 2025 was the 18th year of layoffs for Mirafiori, Fiat’s historic hub (currently notable are the Group’s efforts to publicly emphasize its restart, having assigned it the hybrid 500), in France unions scandalized last autumn highlighted that it had never happened before to have to stop plants for as long as three weeks. It happened from October 13 to 31, 2025: 12 days on layoff plus three days of forced leave.
Unwanted days off that confronted metalworkers with a particularly bitter reality: five plants in France could be redundant, especially considering how business is going in the Hexagon and the rest of Europe. The crisis is affecting all brands in the Old Continent: the Volkswagen group will cut 50,000 jobs in Germany by 2030, while staying in France Renault has announced a reduction of 15-20% of its technical staff by 2028 (research and development, especially for electric cars, is instead being carried out in China).
As for Stellantis and the two thousand workers at Poissy, in recent months there had been speculation about transferring them elsewhere, even outside France. Regarding this, the local press had named the Serbian plant which already hosts Italian workers assigned to the production of the Grande Panda, while now according to the Fatto Quotidiano the workforce will still be halved. Probably without layoffs: natural turnover will be awaited.
The choice to make Poissy a green hub, Le Monde reads, “does not manage to mask the drastic decline of Stellantis’ industrial presence in the Île-de-France region. The site will look less like a factory and more like a huge workshop dedicated to after-sales service, spare parts production, and vehicle reconfiguration. Neither Flins [referring to Renault’s hub in Yvelines also converted to the circular economy ed.] nor Poissy will close, as the goal is to save face and some jobs. But this is clearly another sign of the decline of the French automotive industry and deindustrialization. The timing – it is emphasized – was carefully planned: the day after the municipal elections and well before the presidential elections, which risked amplifying the impact of this decision far beyond its initial effect.”
