On January 10, 2019, Ford announced a severe restructuring plan for its European operations, which currently employ 53,000 people. Some of the elements were unfortunately known, such as the closure of the Bordeaux plant in France, which will cease operations in August 2019. Negotiations have also begun on the Saarlouis assembly site to discontinue production of C-MAX and Grand C-MAX, a segment that is losing momentum. The American manufacturer will also discuss a restructuring of its Russian joint venture with Sollers. Finally, it plans to consolidate its UK headquarters and European lending activities at the Dunton (Essex) site.

The group has not quantified the number of jobs at risk, but we are talking about several thousand jobs, as confirmed this morning in the Financial Times' Steve Armstrong, who chairs the European division. The manager even suggested that a possible failure of the major restructuring launched today could lead Ford to withdraw from Europe, much in the same way that General Motors did when it sold Opel Vauxhall to Peugeot.
 

Ford Europe locations (Source Ford - click to enlarge)