Paper: Stellantis to pause production in six EU factories

PARIS: Auto company Stellantis, whose brands include Jeep, Peugeot and Fiat, plans to pause production at six European factories because of slowing sales, French business daily Les Echos reported.

The factories are in France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain, the paper said.

Stellantis in France confirmed that a factory near Paris would close for two weeks, while a spokesperson for Stellantis in Italy confirmed that a factory near Naples would stop producing Fiat Pandas for a week.

Both units blamed the production pauses on "difficult" market conditions in Europe and a need to "rebalance" inventory.

A Stellantis spokesperson in Poland confirmed to AFP on Tuesday that "downtime" is planned at the Tichy factory in the south of the country, without specifying for how long.

According to Les Echos, this site will be closed for nine days in October.

The other plants affected, according to the newspaper, are those in Eisenach, Germany, which is expected to close for five days, and in Zaragoza and Madrid, Spain for seven and 14 days respectively.

Unions are concerned that the world's fourth largest car company will close other factories in Europe, where producers are facing weak sales, US tariffs and aggressive competition from China.

Stellantis isn't the only European automaker facing difficulties.

On Friday, Volkswagen, the crisis-hit flagship of the German auto industry, lowered its forecasts for 2025, as it prepares to cut 35,000 jobs in Germany.