Is France capable, if not of relocating part of its industry, at least of preventing the loss of its productive potential from worsening in the months and years ahead? While the planned sale of one of Sanofi’s subsidiaries to an American investment fund has given particular sharpness to this question, the situation in the automotive sector is also feeding strong concerns.
Indeed, at the International Car show in Paris in mid-October, a wave of plant closures was announced by auto manufacturers in France and elsewhere in Europe, for example in Germany and Italy, where employees at several companies went on strike. To explain this situation, car company directors have blamed the sharp drop in sales of electric vehicles and competition from China.
The threat to jobs is giving a boost to all those who believe that European regulations (notably the ban on the sale of new combustion-powered vehicles in 2035, and also the CO2 standards due to come into force as early as 2025) have been imposed on manufacturers too quickly and need to be challenged as a matter of urgency.
This has given an opportunity for several political currents, in France and neighboring countries, to challenge both the grip of European bureaucracy, the 55% emissions reduction targets by 2030 adopted by member states and the pace – if not the very necessity – of electrifying the new car fleet.
How can we respond to this? First of all, greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector are not only the highest in France (they account for over 30% of French emissions) but also the ones that have increased the most in recent years in France and Europe. Half of them are produced by private vehicles.
Expensive and heavy electric vehicles
The electrification of the vehicle fleet is therefore an absolute necessity not only to effectively combat climate change but also to protect public health, particularly given the toxicity of fine particles. It should also be remembered that the setbacks experienced by French auto manufacturers were certainly caused by increasing regulatory pressure and the absence of proactive public policies, and also by choices in which manufacturers played a major part.
This was explained in September by researchers from the Permanent Study and Research Group on the Automobile Industry and Employees, an international social science research network dedicated to the sector. The authors pointed out that most auto manufacturers in France and Europe have chosen to produce electric vehicles that are both expensive and heavy, aimed at a wealthy clientele who once guaranteed them comfortable profits. The disadvantages are that these vehicles are inaccessible to the working and middle classes, insufficient in number to meet CO2 emission reduction targets and excessively resource-hungry.
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