A rumor is afoot between Sochaux and Montbéliard in the Doubs department (eastern France). Stellantis is reportedly ready to call on Chinese labor for its plant. Through a Lyon-based company (southeastern France), which itself works for an Italian service provider, the manufacturer is said to be looking for accommodation and even a Chinese cook. Following verification, a company has indeed started looking for accommodation for "single people" and "for one year," concerning "at least a hundred Chinese employees, possibly 200, between March 2025 and January 2026 for a skills transfer to the Stellantis factories in Sochaux," according to a document that Le Monde was able to access.
This means they wouldn't be workers for the 3008 and 5008 assembly lines but technicians coming to install new machines manufactured in China. Stellantis is investing in a new paint shop to cut its power consumption by 30% and its water consumption by half. The group confirmed that such a facility "requires a skilled and experienced workforce." It has been entrusted to an Italian company, Fidia. One-third of the new workshop will use French technology, another third will use machines from Stellantis plants that no longer use them, and a final third will use Chinese technology.
'One-year visas'
"To date, only under 30 applications for one-year visas [January 2025 to January 2026] have been submitted for Chinese workers," said a spokesperson. "These will be intended for the assembly and commissioning of the cataphoresis treatment [the treatment of the metal surface of parts to be painted]." More will undoubtedly be needed, but given the difficulty of getting these visas, the Italian company "may turn to other workers," said Stellantis.
This is not the first time Chinese machines have been sent to equip a Western automotive plant. The giant presses in the Sochaux plant's press shop, which was overhauled four years ago, are also Chinese. So is much of the equipment at the ACC battery plant in the Pas-de-Calais department (northern France), of which Stellantis is a shareholder. "The other companies involved in the paint shop are French," insisted the group, citing: "Sames and Clid for robot integration, the SME EPI, present in Montbeliard, 2MCP for part of the handling and Clemessy, Spie and Firac for automation." The dismantling of the old line has been entrusted to a German company and the civil engineering to a dozen local companies.