The future Citroën C4 will no longer even be European, it will be produced in Africa

The Ministry of Finance hoped to see the electric Peugeot 208 return to France as part of reindustrialization, but Stellantis is taking the opposite path. Not only will the 208 remain in Slovenia, but the future Citroën C4 should leave Europe to cross the Mediterranean. Since the end of Covid, the Italian-American group has been betting big on North Africa because the position is strategic: it allows Stellantis to easily serve the entire Middle East and Africa while remaining within reach of Europe via the Strait of Gibraltar, in particular, and the port of Marseille. And since Chinese business is not going well, it was necessary to find a substitute market for the Middle Kingdom to escape a little from American-European dependence. Since 2022, Stellantis has been investing heavily: first check for 300 million euros to produce more in Kenitrafrom which license-free carts but also the basic Peugeot 208 are already coming out. Soon, a C segment model will join the assembly lines in Morocco.

Goodbye C4, what now?

If Citroën did not necessarily assume that it was compared to Dacia, the manufacturer with its chevrons is now very clearly targeting the Romanian brand. But isn’t it a little late? Is there room in Europe for a “second” Dacia given the scale that the Renault group subsidiary has grown? Time will tell. In the meantime, the future C4, which will arrive after 2026, will leave Madrid-Villaverde to head towards Kenitra where, according to Carlos Tavares, the margins would be in double digits. Labor at a very low hourly rate compared to that found in Europe (including Spain) weighed heavily in the balance. And this will be necessary to launch a C4 which will this time position itself as a rival to the next C-Neo at Dacia.

This decision, announced by several Spanish and North African media, has not yet been confirmed by Stellantis at the time of writing these lines. But the penalty could be double for the Villaverde factory since the Lancia Delta, which was also to be produced in Spain, will go to its native lands in Italy. The Delta therefore comes home when the C4 and C4 X leave Europe.

If Stellantis chose Morocco, it is not for nothing. The kingdom has decided to be generous with new industrial arrivals by offering them five years of tax exemption (15% tax after the fifth year), and no VAT or customs fees. Spain could hardly compete. And while Stellantis has ensured the future of certain French factories until 2030, we inevitably say that France cannot be competitive in the face of such arguments. Renault has also given in to the sirens of Morocco, a new tax haven, by producing Dacia Sandero, Mobilize Duo and other Renault Express. But faced with these new kinds of migrations, the question of the future now arises: where will French manufacturers stop? Will the C4 be the only major European “loss” in the catalog? With the presence of engineering companies on site such as Capgemini (which largely designed the Ami), the question deserves to be asked while an entire ecosystem is being built on the other side of the Mediterranean.