Renault's Le Mans plant renamed in tribute to Louis Schweitzer

Renault Group Renames Le Mans Site 'Manufacture Louis Schweitzer - Le Mans' in Tribute to Former Chairman and CEO

Renault renames Le Mans plant to honor late CEO Louis Schweitzer

Le Mans, April 07, 2026 - Jean-Dominique Senard, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Renault Group, and François Provost, CEO of Renault Group, today visited the Le Mans site in France, a chassis center of excellence, to pay tribute to Louis Schweitzer, former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Group, who passed away on November 6, 2025. To honour its decisive role in the development of the company and the Le Mans site, Renault Group has decided to rename the site the "Manufacture Louis Schweitzer - Le Mans", in the presence of local elected officials.

"We decided with François Provost that it was important for a large site of the Group to bear the name of Louis Schweitzer. He reshaped the company by anchoring economic performance in the Group's long-standing social values.That is why we decided to give his name to the Le Mans site in France. It is a strong symbol and a way of recognizing that a great leader can mark the life of a huge company."Jean-Dominique Senard, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Renault Group.

"By giving the Le Mans site the name of Louis Schweitzer, Renault Group is paying tribute to the man who brought the company into the 21st century. Le Mans site, the oldest of our company, embodies both the depth of our history and our constant ability to innovate. It brings together heritage and forward-looking ambition, industrial tradition and innovation. In that sense, it powerfully reflects what Louis Schweitzer passed on to Renault Group, and what continues to guide us as we look to the future."François Provost, CEO of Renault Group.

Louis Schweitzer joined Renault in 1986 and was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer from 1992 to 2005 but passed away at the age of 83 on November 6, 2025. A visionary and strategist, he leaves a deep mark on the history of Renault Group and the French automotive industry.

Louis Schweitzer, a founding figure in the transformation of Renault Group

A major figure in the history of Renault Group, Louis Schweitzer played a decisive role in the modernization and internationalization of the Group. Under his presidency from 1992 to 2005, the Group underwent a profound transformation marked by the launch of emblematic models such as Twingo, Scénic and Kangoo, the acquisition of Dacia, the creation of the Alliance with Nissan and the structuring of key industrial subsidiaries, including Auto Chassis International (ACI) in 1999, which was to play an essential role in the development of the Le Mans site.

A leader recognized for his sense of dialogue and his attention to human relations, Louis Schweitzer has supported the Group's major changes by focusing on listening, transparency and consultation, thus helping to establish a lasting climate of trust within the teams. By renaming the Le Mans site after him, Renault Group is paying tribute to a leader whose career embodies the combination of strategic audacity, humanism and industrial standards.

The link between Louis Schweitzer and the Le Mans site is both founding and structuring. With the creation of Auto Chassis International (ACI) in 1999, Louis Schweitzer laid the foundations of a unique centre of excellence in the global automotive industry, combining technological mastery and competitiveness, in particular thanks to the "make or buy" model, always at the heart of the performance of industrialised projects at Le Mans and abroad.

The Le Mans site, an industrial heritage at the service of performance and innovation

Heir to more than 100 years of industrial history, since the launch of the first activities by Louis Renault in 1920, then the chassis specialization initiated in the 1950s, the Le Mans site today embodies the continuity dear to the Group between mechanical tradition and sustainable innovation.

A true integrated automotive ecosystem, it boosts collaboration between engineering and manufacturing and remains at the forefront of chassis R&D. The site is currently developing major innovations such as automated bin picking by 3D vision, the development of laser cladding, a cutting-edge technology to reduce braking particle emissions, and the "by wire" chassis that replaces traditional mechanical steering and braking links with ultra-precise electronic controls, currently on board the Filante Record 2025 democar.

A key player in Renault Group's electrification strategy, Le Mans now supplies chassis components and architectures adapted to electrified vehicles across the entire range, from Renault 5 to Master ETech, and brings together a chassis technical center of 300 experts and a factory of 1,400 professionals, guaranteeing complete control of design and production for the mobility of the future.

Key figures Le Mans:

Site with an industrial heritage rich in more than 100 years of activity, including 70 years of expertise in chassis components at the oldest plant in the Group
1,719 employees in total: major industrial employer in the Sarthe region - 100 partner companies in the regional basin.
Unique ecosystem with a circular waste economy: the only automotive industrial site with a foundry in the same location as the machine and stamping workshops with in-house, closed-loop recycling of the material.
28,000 m of buildings - 111 production lines in operation 24/7
22 customer sites - 6.3 million rotors produced per year - 1.5 million axles - 1.6 million cradles

Chassis, Product and Process Engineering Center worldwide

280 employees - 9,3% women - 4,800 prototypes produced - 900 chassis components tested per year (All our world models: Twingo, Trafic E-Tech, Clio VI, etc.)