PSA to produce its own masks from its Mulhouse factory - France 24

Mulhouse (AFP)

The PSA factory in Mulhouse (Haut-Rhin) will produce from August protective masks for employees of the automaker around the world, we learned Thursday from its management.

An "automated line" for manufacturing surgical masks will be installed in August in the Mulhouse paint shop, in order to "cover the equipment needs of the group's employees," PSA management announced in a press release.

The production machines will be bought from a "French industrialist", she specified, without revealing the identity.

The manufacturer will thus be able "eventually" to manufacture 10 million masks each month.

Initially, following the implementation in August, this capacity will be shared equally between Mulhouse and the industrial partner which will also produce in France, then it will be entirely concentrated in the Alsatian factory from August 2021, added management.

The masks will be intended for the various PSA factories in the world, except China which will be able to obtain supplies from numerous local manufacturers.

Production in Mulhouse will be ensured by 12 employees of the Alsatian site in the first phase and the workforce should double in the second time, added Yann Vincent, industrial director of the PSA group.

PSA Mulhouse employs 5,000 permanent employees.

"We wanted to secure the supply of masks by producing them ourselves, commented Mr. Vincent. We experienced for ourselves what the States and communities lived: the supply in China is + the far-west +, with exploding prices and difficulty in sourcing, "said Vincent, during a press conference.

According to him, Mulhouse was chosen on the basis of two criteria. On the one hand, the search for a location "close to most of our production sites", which is the case in eastern France in relation to the factories in Europe concerned, on the other hand, " special sanitary conditions (humidity, dust ...) "required, which the Mulhouse paint shop respects, explained Mr. Vincent.

On the other hand, the "symbolic dimension" of producing in one of the epicenters of the Covid-19 crisis was not a decision criterion.

The masks could also be used for "external organizations which fight against the virus and exclusion", according to the manufacturer, but in a marginal way. "We could possibly give them, not resell them, very locally," said Vincent.

© 2020 AFP