Michelin CEO Florent Menegaux has made the strategic call that the tyre group cannot export mass-market production from Europe any more: the cost gap with Asia is too wide, Chinese rivals are now entering passenger-car tyres, and 2025 group revenues fell 4.4% to €26bn on a softer US truck market. His response is to keep only the highest-end tyre production in France — racing, aviation landing gear, and a moon-rover tyre Michelin is pitching to Nasa for the Artemis missions — while diversifying aggressively into polymer composites (materials used in sealants, fabric coatings, aviation, energy, construction).

The French footprint is already shrinking. Michelin closed two truck and van tyre plants last year (Vannes in Brittany, Cholet in western France), cutting more than 6% of its French workforce — 1,200 jobs. Clermont-Ferrand, the group's 140-year-old home, now employs about 10,000 people, one third of the 1980s peak. The historic Cataroux plant is being converted into a start-up and research hub. Local unions fear more cuts as most French plants run below capacity — only the Bourges aeroplane tyre factory is doing well. France still hosts half of Michelin's 30 European plants; the Americas have a similar count, and Asia 15.

The diversification math matters. Polymer composites generated €1.3bn in sales in 2025 (€1.7bn including recent purchases), a fraction of group revenues but the group's most profitable business at 15% margins. Michelin did three US composite acquisitions last year for around €1bn combined enterprise value, and Menegaux says the group plans to make at least that many every year globally. Menegaux also warned that the EU's looming Chinese-tyre tariffs and its "Buy European" automotive framework should not become a "stipend" that removes the incentive to innovate. Source: Financial Times, 18 April 2026, Sarah White.