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Renault to shift Clio production to Turkey: report
French car maker Renault may shift production of its popular Clio model to Turkey, a report said on Friday, sparking a call by France's right-wing ruling party for the government to block the move.
French car maker Renault may shift production of its popular Clio model to Turkey, a report said on Friday, sparking a call by France's right-wing ruling party for the government to block the move.
Renault plans to end production of the model at the factory in Flins, northwest of Paris, and move it to the western Turkish city of Bursa, the French economic daily La Tribune said, without citing its sources.
A Renault spokesman did not confirm the report, saying Clios were currently made in Flins and Bursa and production would continue that way when the new version, the Clio 4, is launched.
The spokesman for President Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP party, Frederic Lefebvre, said a complete shift to Turkey would be "unacceptable" and called for the state to intervene to block any such move.
"I demand that the state... summon Renault to prevent the terrible decision about Flins from being adopted," he said on the radio station RFI on Friday.
Lefebvre cited government measures taken last year to support the auto sector in the economic downturn, which included generous loans to car makers on condition that they keep production and jobs in France.
Sarkozy has vaunted those measures as helping drag France out of recession last year.
Lefebvre said: "If the auto industry has been saved in our country it is because there has been extremely strong state involvement" and support by taxpayers.
