Emmanuel Macron returns to the field to inaugurate a Sanofi factory in the Rhône

For his first field trip since the dissolution of the Assembly and the political earthquake that followed, Emmanuel Macron inaugurated a factory on Tuesday, September 10 “futuristic” vaccines and biomedicines from the French group Sanofi, near Lyon.

The head of state arrived alone at 4:45 p.m. at the site in Neuville-sur-Saône (Rhône), which represents an investment of 500 million euros by the group and the state. No minister accompanied him. Michel Barnier, appointed to Matignon on Thursday, is continuing his consultations to find the most stable majority possible and form a government.

This plant, presented as unique in the world, will make it possible to produce up to four vaccines or biomedicines simultaneously and to reconfigure the production lines in a few days or weeks to manufacture others if necessary, Sanofi underlines in a press release. Traditionally, such an industrial site has buildings dedicated to a technology or a product and any change of production platform requires “several months or even several years”.

Sanofi, which missed the shift to mRNA vaccines during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, is thus positioning itself once again in the innovation race. The plant will be operational at the end of 2025, after qualification of the facilities and validation of the manufacturing processes, and will enable the creation of 160 jobs.