Tensions are running sky-high at the historic Stellantis factory in Poissy, on the outskirts of Paris. Production has been paused for three weeks, sidelining some 2,000 workers. While the official line blames the “difficult situation in the European automotive market”, employees view this downtime as a grim prologue to their worst fear: a permanent shutdown.
This plant, with an 88-year history of building everything from Simca to Peugeot, and currently producing the Opel Mokka and DS 3, is now facing an existential crisis. The current models have been in production for three years with no successors or new investments announced. Employees are fatalistic, openly stating: “We have a year, maybe a year and a half”. The overwhelming certainty is that the Poissy factory will be sacrificed in the grand Stellantis strategic plan.
The activity on the production floor only reinforces these anxieties. Machinery is being moved to smaller spaces during the suspension, which, while officially framed as an optimization effort, feels like the chilling prelude to a final halt. Whispers circulate about replacing car assembly with lower-volume work like niche component or spare parts manufacturing. Workers are highly skeptical. They know this transition translates to less work and fewer full-time jobs.
The real drama, however, involves the world of sports. For months, French media have reported that Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) is actively seeking a site for a massive new stadium, and the Poissy location is one of two final candidates. Crucially, negotiations with Stellantis are reportedly underway. The sheer size of a PSG investment would be virtually impossible to reconcile with the factory’s continued full-scale operation. While officially this is framed as a matter of urban development, the workers inside the plant perceive it as a threat of industrial relocation, driven by a gigantic sporting enterprise.
Stellantis maintains the official, corporate position: “The factory has secured its industrial project until 2028”. But that official statement does little to calm nerves given the fundamental reality. Opel Mokka production is ending, and no new models have been announced for Poissy.
