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FRANCE will intervene in its stricken car manufacturing industry to revive it on a more environmentally friendly basis, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said today.
“I will announce a plan to relaunch car buying as well as the industry’s transition to a more sustainable model,” Mr Le Maire said.
Factory shutdowns as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic have hit the industry hard across Europe, with European Automobile Manufacturers Association director-general Eric-Mark Huitema decrying the “worst crisis ever to impact the automotive sector” last month. He called for the EU to delay enforcement of regulatory targets to assist the industry.
French firms Renault and PSA, which owns Peugeot and Citroen, are in trouble, with car sales down 89 per cent last month compared with a year ago. But Mr Le Maire said that intervention ought to aim at a greener car industry in future.
“That means supporting purchases of clean cars. We need to use this crisis as a lever for accelerating our environment transition and to encourage the French to buy cars that today are still too expensive,” he said.
