Citroën's C5 Aircross Émeraude is French. Rennes builds a Voyah in 2028

Citroën's most French special edition in years comes with a Chinese footnote

Citroën has added a special edition to the C5 Aircross called the Émeraude, and it is an unusually literal piece of branding. The name belongs to the Côte d'Émeraude, the stretch of Breton coastline north of the factory where the car is built, and there is a French flag on the rear window trim in case anyone misses the point. The factory's own plan for the next decade is less French.

The Émeraude is a Plus trim with Ocean Blue paint and Drive Assist 2.0

The Émeraude sits on the mid-range Plus trim and adds an exclusive Ocean Blue paint, with the same colour repeated on the clips in the front door panels and the front bumper. Standard equipment includes an electrically adjustable driver's seat, heated front seats, a heated steering wheel, a second-row centre armrest, wireless phone charging, a hands-free powered tailgate and the Drive Assist 2.0 package. Four existing colours stay on the list. Citroën has not published prices yet, and the edition goes on sale in October.

The name comes from the coast next to Chartres-de-Bretagne

Rennes-La Janais, in Chartres-de-Bretagne just outside Rennes, has built the C5 Aircross since 2025 and is the only reason there is a Breton name on the car at all. The site opened in 1961 and has produced around 13 million vehicles across roughly 17 models. The current C5 Aircross is now the only car assembled there, after the Peugeot 5008 moved off the line.

Rennes has gone from 12,000 staff to about 2,100

The plant that the Émeraude is celebrating is a fraction of what it was. Rennes employed about 12,000 people in 2004 and now has roughly 2,100, of whom 1,500 are on permanent contracts. Its footprint has been cut from 229 hectares in 2015 to about 100. Stellantis put close to 150 million euros into modernising it for the new C5 Aircross, plus around 18 million on decarbonisation, and shut the paint shop to concentrate the rest under one roof.

Stellantis and Dongfeng will build a Voyah at Rennes from 2028

On 20 May this year, at an extraordinary works council meeting the day before Stellantis presented its strategic plan, the company confirmed that Rennes will also assemble a vehicle from Voyah, Dongfeng's premium brand, with production targeted for 2028. The model type has not been disclosed. Stellantis and Dongfeng also said they intend to set up a Europe-based joint venture led by Stellantis covering sales and distribution, production, purchasing and engineering. The CFDT, the site's majority union, called it a half-relief and asked for written guarantees on jobs before signing up to anything.

Citroën wants 100,000 C5 Aircross a year, 32 percent of them for France

The volume plan is 100,000 cars a year, or up to 400 a day at full rate, against the roughly 77,000 vehicles a year the plant turned out in the first-generation car's era. Its own split for that run is 32 percent for France, 18 percent for Germany, 16 percent for Turkey, 9 percent for Italy and 6 percent for Spain, with around 60 percent of output expected to be fully electric. Stellantis reported orders for the new C5 Aircross up 47 percent year on year in the first half of 2026, with registrations up 7 percent in France, 10 percent in Spain and 80 percent in Portugal.

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The Émeraude is a paint code and a kit list, and on its own it would not be worth your time. What makes it interesting is where the marketing department went looking for a story. It did not reach for a heritage nameplate or a rally result. It reached for the postcode of the factory, because Rennes surviving at all is the most impressive thing Citroën has to sell right now.

And the survival plan is not a French one. A site that employed 12,000 people two decades ago gets back to building two models only by taking in a Chinese premium brand, on a line paid for with public decarbonisation money, under a joint venture whose engineering scope nobody at the plant can yet describe. Citroën is entitled to paint a tricolore on the glass. It should expect somebody to ask, in 2028, what the flag is actually certifying.

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