You’ve had a distinctly varied career, from politics to the cosmetics industry, and now at Renault Group. What drew you to the automotive sector?
I began my career in politics because I wanted to work for the common good. Even though I was born and raised in another country, I’m French, and I felt strongly about contributing to my country. After a while, politics took a toll on me, and I began craving more concrete, hands-on work. I was fortunate to be approached by the cosmetics company Sisley — a French, family-owned business.
I enjoyed my time there before I was headhunted to join Renault Group. Once again, a French company, this time with industrial reach. Renault has always maintained strong ties to France, not only in terms of employment and facilities and in engineering and innovation. It’s very much anchored in the country’s industrial and strategic fabric.
Renault Group’s electric vehicle entity Ampere was launched in 2023. What does its latest concept vehicle, the Renault Emblème represent?
Emblème is a manifesto vehicle — a “we can do it” kind of car. It aims to serve the group and its markets with electric vehicles and to push the boundaries of sustainability. Being electric only solves part of the climate challenge. To illustrate: a typical C-segment internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle has a cradle-to-grave carbon footprint of around 50 tonnes of CO₂. This includes the components, engine, tires, steel, aluminum, assembly, and usage. By switching to electric, that figure drops to between 25 and 30 tonnes, depending on battery size, particularly in family cars. Our goal is to go further — to pave a path toward true net-zero. With Emblème, we’ve targeted a 90% reduction in carbon footprint compared to an ICE baseline, from 50 to 5 tonnes of CO2 eq.
This concept also marks a new approach in vehicle design. Previously, we focused only on tailpipe emissions — what we called "VAFE" (Vehicle Average Emissions for tailpipe). Now, we consider the entire cradle-to-grave impact, from the initial sketch to choosing whether a door should be aluminum or steel. Emblème is set to shape the next generation of Ampere vehicles, particularly family models expected by late 2028 or 2029.
The Emblème claims to use at least 50% recycled materials. What will it take to scale this level of materials reuse as a feature across the entire vehicle range?
In theory, we can reach up to 70% recycled content in a vehicle, which we did in a mock-up version of the Scenic presented at ChangeNOW in 2022. The main challenge is the scalability and availability of recycled steel and aluminum. The industrial process, especially for steel, relies heavily on electric arc furnaces, and Europe doesn’t yet have enough of those. The U.S. is further ahead. There’s also a need to develop a true closed-loop, car-to-car recycling industry — that’s the vision behind The Future is Neutral, Renault Group’s entity dedicated to the circular economy
Currently, there’s a big gap between a car’s recyclability, around 85–90%, which meets regulatory targets, and the actual percentage of recycled materials used, which is only about 30–31% in the best ICE vehicles. That regulatory figure can include valorization or even incineration, which is legal but not our approach. The Future is Neutral is working to close that gap by partnering with Boone Comenor to recover steel and aluminum scrap from assembly plants. It also integrates Indra, which operates 350 dismantling centers, and collaborates with Gaia, which transforms end-of-life materials — including plastic, glass, copper, and platinum-group metals — into usable inputs for new vehicles.
Some car manufacturers are concerned about the level of EU support for affordable, small electric vehicles. You’ve talked about the importance of anchoring EV production in Europe. Where is the disconnect between industry and policymakers?
Up until recently, the CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) regulations, which govern tailpipe emissions, effectively incentivized the production of larger vehicles, based on how emissions targets were calculated. That’s one factor. But beyond that, automakers now face a growing number of environmental regulations in Europe. There are the Euro standards for pollution (Euro 6, Euro 7), the CAFE regulations, the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), and extended producer responsibility for recycling end-of-life batteries and vehicles.
If you take a 2015 Renault Clio and project it to 2030, the regulatory cost increase alone is about 40%. And that’s just to stay compliant. The pace and scope of regulations are accelerating, making it increasingly difficult to build small, affordable, and sustainable vehicles profitably. Larger models can absorb the extra costs more easily due to higher margins. That’s why we’re advocating for a dedicated regulatory framework to support small, sustainable EVs. We’re committed to producing them in Europe — the R5 will retail at €25,000, the Twingo at €20,000, and we have an even more affordable model in the pipeline. But we need a level playing field. Some competitors benefit from significant subsidies or operate under very different labor and environmental standards.
While the U.S. and China surge ahead with strong industrial support for adoption, is Europe’s regulatory approach putting its own EV industry at a competitive disadvantage?
In the EV world, our main competition comes from the U.S. and China. What we need in Europe is a model that aligns with our societal and environmental values. Right now, there's a disconnect between market demand and regulatory expectations. For instance, under CAFE, carmakers were required to ensure that 23–25% of their total sales mix in 2025 came from EVs. But the actual EV market share in Europe is only around 13–14%. That’s a 10-point gap.
The issue isn't a lack of supply, but affordability. Battery chemistries are shifting from NMC to LFP, value chains are evolving — it’s a fast-moving environment, and cost reductions are hard to achieve. Renault and Ampere are addressing this with the €20,000 Twingo and €25,000 R5, but to make these models truly viable, we need stronger policy support.
You’ve spoken about “eco-emotions.” As cars become quieter and cleaner, do you ever worry they could lose the magic that made people love them in the first place?
What concerns me most is that sustainability could threaten vehicle affordability and competitiveness. My core mission is to make sustainability cost-transparent. It shouldn’t be a luxury.
If sustainable cars are only accessible to the wealthy, they won’t be effective. The rich aren’t the majority, and without mass adoption, we won’t see a real climate impact.
That would be hypocritical, or at least insufficient. Of course, some of the hesitation around EVs is generational — psychological barriers like range anxiety or unfamiliarity with charging. But that happens with any technological shift.
Sustainability doesn’t kill design or performance. EVs can offer even greater acceleration. There’s still room for magic. People didn’t buy the R5 because it was electric — they bought it because it was R5, an iconic vehicle with an iconic silhouette. Younger generations are flying less and believe in shared mobility, in EVs. The world is changing.
