2023-05-12 15:45:57
Emmanuel Macron on Friday touted his policy of reindustrialisation in Dunkirk, announcing huge foreign investments in batteries for a total of 6.7 billion euros and 4,700 jobs, while assuming his controversial call for a “pause” of news European environmental standards. “The mother of battles begins now”, launched the Head of State in the Aluminum Dunkirk factory. In terms of announcements, the Taiwanese group ProLogium will set up in the northern city, erected by the Elysée as a “symbol” of an industrial awakening in France, a “huge factory of electric batteries” for an investment of 5.2 billion and the expected creation of 3,000 direct jobs, welcomed the president.
The company had already unveiled its project, but Emmanuel Macron reserved another announcement: the Chinese XTC and the French Orano will invest 1.5 billion euros and create 1,700 jobs in a site linked to lithium batteries, still at Dunkirk. Proof of the tough competition in this field, the Swedish group Northvolt for its part confirmed on Friday the installation of a giant factory of electric batteries in Germany. “A real ecosystem for batteries is developing in the north of France”, greeted a vice-president of ProLogium, Gilles Normand to several press agencies, including AFP. Three other “gigafactory” projects have already been announced there, gradually transforming this land, long in the process of deindustrialization, into an electricity valley in France.
“A hub of attractiveness”
The Head of State considered that the port city was becoming “a hub of attractiveness” and proved the merits of his “choice” to bet in Hauts-de-France as elsewhere on an “electric vehicle strategy” and “to electrify our practices”. Like Thursday at the Elysée, he promised to work hard to reindustrialize the country. Objective: to hope to keep up with the United States of Joe Biden, which has adopted a colossal plan of public aid to its industry in favor of the energy transition imposed by climate change, and in the face of Chinese competition .
On the front line for Europe to respond to these proactive if not protectionist policies, the President unveiled several measures intended to “accelerate” the awakening of French industry while greening it: a new tax credit for the production of batteries, wind turbines or solar panels supposed to generate 20 billion euros of investment by 2030, and an overhaul of the bonus for the purchase of an electric car so that it indirectly targets “Made in Europe”.
Anger of environmentalists
But he also assumed in Dunkirk his call from the day before for a regulatory “pause” on the new European environmental standards, which had been denounced in particular by elected environmentalists. “Let’s apply and go to the end” of the European Union’s Green Deal, “but let’s not add more,” he said, in the name of the “stability” of the rules. “I prefer factories that meet our European standards, which are the best, rather than those who still want to add standards” and take the risk of “no longer having a factory”, insisted the president. The projects announced on Friday are part of a larger package that will be unveiled on the occasion of the sixth edition, Monday in Versailles, of the “Choose France” summit launched by the president in 2018 to attract foreign projects. The Elysée is already announcing a “record” edition, beyond ten billion euros.
The projects attracted since 2017 in Dunkirk “will allow the creation or maintenance of around 16,000 jobs over ten years while the city has lost nearly 6,000 industrial jobs in 20 years”, argues the executive. But not far from there, Valdunes, the last manufacturer in France of train wheels, was let go last week by its Chinese shareholder. Its two French sites, located in Leffrinckoucke and Trith-Saint-Léger, also in the North, employ 336 people.
As with every trip in recent times, the Head of State was expected by demonstrators equipped with saucepans, kept at a distance by an imposing security device. Opponents of his pension reform, even as he tries to turn the page on this crisis by reinvesting in the economic field. But also Valdunes employees, in work jackets and helmets on their heads, came to show “that they do not want to die like that”, launched AFP Olivier Bournisien, method manager within the forge. The CGT de Valdunes said it had asked Emmanuel Macron for a meeting during his trip, with no return at this stage.
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