A call for help in exchange for a dream bike!
I am getting so tired of governments (not just the French) misleading their people to push their short term agendas and political plays. With the announcement “Plus verte et plus competitive : notre plan de soutien à la filière automobile” on May 26 to support the French automobile industry my personal life, my business and what I believe in are impacted severely and I feel it is necessary to speak up and take action.
Before I go into this I just want to give you a little background about myself. I’m German and I had been living the first 16 years of my life in a country that doesn’t exist anymore. It doesn’t exist anymore because the people living in went to the streets to overthrow a suppressive regime. Now I know that in France (or Germany) people are not killed or in large parts locked away because they think differently or they want to get out. But the arbitrary behaviour, the deliberate distribution of misleading statements and sometimes right-out lies are starting to take similar dimensions as compared to what I have experienced in my youth.
I now live in France. My kids are half French and this is my home. I don’t have the right to vote here but I pay taxes and I created employment. I have never taken a single Euro from the French government to establish my business. I build bicycles in Roubaix, the north of France, primarily from materials and components manufactured in France and in Europe - as much as this is possible, or at least I try to use components that are manufactured under the same working conditions that I would like to have for myself, i.e. paid holidays and sick-leave, health insurance, not more that a 40 hour week.
Why am I so upset about the announcement of May 26th? My anger is two-fold. There is first of all the anger about the use of language and misleading facts to paint a picture that is supposed to make us, the people, buy into their plan. And secondly there is the (presumably) illegal approach to unlevel the competitive playing field among manufacturers of vehicles in France.
Let me elaborate, and please excuse my not so scientific approach, I’m trying to apply common sense. Monsieur Macron says, and that is his first objective to “become more green” :
“À chaque fois qu’une personne change son vieux véhicule essence ou diesel pour un véhicule neuf diesel, essence, hybride, ou (encore mieux !) électrique, nous réduisons nos émissions de CO2.” // “Every time someone changes their old petrol or diesel vehicle for a new diesel, petrol, hybrid, or (even better!) electric vehicle, we reduce our CO2 emissions.”
I don’t know where he gets that information from. It would, as with all such information, be good to see the data that backs up such a statement. Applying common sense, the fabrication of a new car, especially an electric car, has a significant carbon footprint. So first of all, we’re adding CO2 emissions with the production of a new car for which the car that is being replaced could have still run for a very long time. Furthermore, the replaced car doesn’t (in most cases) disappear. In the best case it gets recycled. But very often those cars continue to run for people who can’t afford to buy a fancy new electric car or they get shipped off to other countries and continents where they continue to run, often for first time car owners, increasing global car volume. So by common sense I would argue that “À chaque fois qu’une personne change son vieux véhicule … nous augmentons nos émissions de CO2” // "Every time someone changes their old car... we increase our CO2 emissions." I think I’m closer to the truth with my statement than Monsieur Macron with his.
With the increase in CO2 emissions caused by this plan you can already eliminate the “Plus verte” from the headline and the first objective to become “more green” is out of the window. And just to give a little moral slap in the face: more CO2 emissions lead to more global warming which leads to more poverty, migration, health risks and consequently deaths and lower life expectancy for millions of people all over the world. Didn’t we just shut down several industries such as the hospitality industry to save thousands of lives? Well, how far should we go to save millions of lives?
But I know moral doesn’t win elections and doesn’t win in court. So let’s talk about the “more competitive” in the headline of Monsieur Macrons announcement. Unfortunately he doesn’t say “more competitive vs. whom”. Who are the other competitors that he wants to strengthen the French automobile industry against? Are those international car makers? There seems to be an international aspect because the second objective of the plan is to bring the production home to France. Or are those manufacturers of other vehicles such as bicycles? I guess I should have better manufactured my bikes in China to get government support now to build up my business in France? How is it legally possible to use public money to support a private company fix mistakes they have made in the past while doing business, raking in profits but apparently without a contingency plan for global economic changes. French car manufacturers are basically being rewarded for having set up plants in Asia, moving employment away from home, while companies like, let’s say local bicycle manufacturers, who made the investment in France, created employment, and manufacture in a sustainably and responsible way a sustainable and responsible product get nothing. This seems not just dodgy and immoral (here we go again) but also illegal with respect to anti-competitive legislation.
Not just are car manufacturers being rewarded to bring the production back home, where they should have never left in the first place. Customers will also get significant subsidies to purchase their vehicles (under objective 1 to become “more green”), effectively skewing purchase decisions away from other, eco-friendlier vehicles, such as the bicycle. In my view, cars and high-end polyvalent bicycles manufactured in France are in direct competition when it comes to a purchasing decision, especially in urban areas. I find it very disturbing and outright illegal that the government supports the purchase of only one type of vehicle which on top of that, as we already established, increases CO2 emissions.
Let’s get to objective 3 of the announcement : “investir dans la modernisation”. 200 million for robots (that sounds already wrong), 150 million for research (Group Renault had an R&D spending of 3.7 billion Euros in 2019. - not sure how far they will get with whatever their share of those 150 million Euros is), and 600 million Euros for “industriel en difficultés”. Hm. On the bright side, just the Groupe Renault had a stock price increase on May 27, one day after the announcement by Monsieur Macron, of 3.35 Euros per share. We can assume that this was entirely due to the announcement because the rest of the market didn’t make such a leap. At 270 million shares out there that is an increase of about 900 million Euros in one day. There is basically the money to finance objective 3. No need to use public money. Slightly bitter taste and hint of illegality, the French state owns 15% of Renault stock. Nicely plaid Monsieur Macron. I hope you bought some stock options before.
To summarise, the French government wants to spend 8 billion Euros of public money supporting it with false claims, discriminating other participants who are competing in the same market with more sustainable and responsible products and processes, and influencing stock market prices to enrich private investors.
That brings us to how to get the dream bike. I’m not a lawyer or legal expert. And I suck at speaking official language French. Therefore I am looking for the person, who thinks there is a legal case in all this to take this to a court of law and hold the French government responsible for anti-competitive practice and anything else that is wrong with this announcement. If you can achieve this, regardless of the outcome, I will build you the bike of your dreams, non-electric, no budget limits. Who knows, in the best case we will have a plan to support the purchase of any locally manufactured motor-less vehicle.
Who is interested ?
