PARIS — Operations at a Peugeot auto plant in northeastern France have been suspended until at least September because of the lack of spare parts from Iran, union officials said on Thursday.

"There is a tentative plan to resume activity and shipments in September," CFTC union official Franck Don told AFP after a work's council meeting.
 

Management from PSA Peugeot Citroen last week put 220 employees at its Vesoul factory in partial redundancy for the month of April due to a slowdown caused by blocked shipments from Iran.
 

This latest decision will require redeploying another 300 workers and the axing of 300 part-time jobs, a CGT union source said.
 

PSA Peugeot Citroen halted activity with Iran on February 20 when economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
 

The French car making group has also halted its exports of vehicles to Iran, which accounted for around 13 percent of the firm’s global deliveries last year.

 

Iran was PSA Peugeot Citroen’s second-biggest market in 2011 in terms of trade volume.

 

Recently, a U.S. advocacy group, United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), called on U.S. Congress to launch a probe into the French automaker’s transactions with Iran.

 

UANI also put pressure, should we say threatened, General Motors because GM holds 7% of Peugeot Citroën.  Officials from the French car maker said it was GM that pressured them to stop selling knock down kits to Iran.  A knock down kit is basically a unassembled car.

Peugeot Citroën has manufacturing deals with Iran Khodro, a major car maker in Iran.
 

By the way, stopping Peugeot Citroën business with Iran will not hurt Iran’s economy.  Iran Khodro is doing extremely well with its own car designs, especially in the Central Asian market. So the real question is; who is really being targeted by the U.S. sanctions?

 

U.S. activists pressure Renault-Nissan to leave Iran
 

Meanwhile, the U.S. activist group also on Wednesday urged French automaker Renault and its Japanese partner Nissan to pull their business out of Iran because of its suspected program to develop nuclear weapons.

 

Renault has doubled its production in Iran from about 50,000 vehicles in 2010 to 93,578 in 2011, according to UANI.

 

The group’s letter was signed by former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Mark Wallace, who also is president of UANI.

 

The UANI letter said it was “disturbing” that Nissan was getting a contract valued at about $1 billion to manufacture a new fleet of New York City taxis while the automaker continues to do business in Iran.

 

(Source: agencies)