Good news for the president of Hauts-de-France, Xavier Bertrand, on the day before the regional elections. By 2024, a thousand jobs will be created in the electric battery plant that the Sino-Japanese group Envision will set up on the Renault Douai site (North), Xavier Bertrand announced on Friday.
“We have obtained that the factory” Envision AESC, Japanese subsidiary of the Chinese group Envision, “is set up for a production site of 9 gigawatts,” said Xavier Bertrand, stealing the show from Emmanuel Macron, who is expected Monday at Douai for the official unveiling of the project, accompanied by three of his ministers (Agnès Pannier-Runacher, Gérard Darmanin and Franck Riester).
A project “fully supported by the State”
A capacity of 9 gigawatt hours (GWh) per year would be equivalent to that of the future plant of Renault’s competitor, Stellantis (born from the merger of Peugeot-Citroën and Fiat-Chrysler), associated with TotalEnergies in Pas-de-Calais, which targets 8 GWh per year – initial capacities admittedly lower than the major projects of other manufacturers in Europe such as Volkswagen and Tesla. AESC will manufacture batteries (around 150,000 per year initially) for the compact ranges of the Losange and other brands. Immediately after Xavier Bertrand’s announcement, the Minister of Industry, Agnès Pannier-Runacher stressed that this project was “fully supported by the State”.
“This is a project that has been supported for three years now by the government, Bruno Le Maire and myself, with European negotiations which have enabled the European Commission to make this subject an industrial priority and to authorize us to finance the projects ”, underlined the Minister. The Envision plant will be the centerpiece of the “ElectriCity” cluster that Renault will launch in the North in 2022. The batteries, added to the assembly of the electric Mégane and R5, should breathe new life into the Douai factories, Maubeuge and Ruitz, who were idling. The State should support the project to the tune of 60 million euros while the region will finance the operation to the tune of 35 million euros, said Xavier Bertrand. “There is a prospect of increasing to 2,500 jobs in 2030 if the production capacity increases to 24 gigawatts” in the AESC plant, added the elected official, ex-LR.
“The frog and the ox”
“Of course, local communities are taking their part and we invite them to take it”, insisted Agnès Pannier-Runacher, “but the strategy and development of this project is obviously supported by the President of the Republic, the Minister of Economy and the Minister of Industry ”. “We are a little surprised by this desire of the frog to make itself bigger than the ox,” she added. With his visit to the Renault factory on Monday, Emmanuel Macron wishes to “illustrate the attractiveness of France in the industrial sector, in future segments, and its repercussions for the territories, in particular in terms of jobs”, a underlined the Elysee.
In the wake of this trip, the Head of State is due to go to the “Choose France” forum on Monday, under the patronage of the Elysee Palace and which will bring together in Versailles more than a hundred directors of foreign companies and about fifty directors of French companies. The future establishment of AESC is part of the “construction of a European valley of electric batteries in Hauts-de-France”, recalled Agnès Pannier-Runacher, with reference to the mega-factory for the production of batteries in Hauts-de-France. Douvrin (Pas-de-Calais), 30 km from Douai, common to Stellantis and TotalEnergies.
“Electricity”
The creation of this ecosystem is “obviously funded, and accompanied by very significant state funding in which the share of local communities is relatively minor,” she said. Renault intends to manufacture 500,000 vehicles per year in its ElectriCity, or one sixth of its production in 2020. The project was approved at the beginning of June by all of the manufacturer’s unions, even if some fear that all employees are not found in the new pole.
“We take this as good news for the region in terms of employment,” said David Dubois, general secretary of the Renault CGT in Douai. “It would have been better if it was French, we’re not going to lie to each other. We are unfortunately never sure of anything, whether it is the French, the Chinese or the Poles. The Renault Electricity Pole is based on this factory, so if they fail, the whole thing collapses ”.