PARIS (AFP) – Struggling French carmakers will get up to six billion euros (7.7 billion dollars) of state aid to help the key industry survive the financial crisis, the prime minister said on Tuesday.

“Our effort in favor of manufacturers will be massive. What are we talking about? Sums of the order of five or six billion euros,” Francois Fillon said at a meeting with executives from car companies and suppliers and union leaders.
But he warned that “there is no question of the state helping a manufacturer which decides to simply close one or several production sites in France.”
Facing collapsing demand, Renault, PSA Peugeot Citroen and their suppliers have dramatically cut production and shed thousands of jobs as they struggle to stay afloat in the global economic downturn.
With car production here down by 10 percent in the first nine months of 2008, the two carmakers have come under fire for running factories abroad. Renault's popular Twingo is built in Slovenia and the Peugeot 107 city car in Slovakia.
Industry Minister Luc Chatel on Monday told Le Figaro newspaper that the French state might take stakes in carmakers in exchange for providing financial support.