Virginie de Pierrepont has been appointed president of France’s automotive industry “filière,” becoming the first woman to hold the top job in the sector’s history.
The move is unusual in a field long dominated by the same leadership profiles. The French automotive “filière”—a broad umbrella that brings together automakers, parts suppliers and subcontractors—has, for the first time, chosen a woman to represent the industry at the highest level.
A rare break with a traditionally male leadership pipeline
De Pierrepont takes over after a long line of male presidents leading the main employer-side representatives of the auto industry in France. Her appointment is a symbolic shift in a sector that supports several hundred thousand jobs nationwide and is being reshaped at speed by electrification and rising competition from Asia.
Full details of her professional background and the precise terms of her start in the role were not made public in the information available at this stage. The news of her appointment was reported by L’Automobile Magazine, a publication headquartered at 48 boulevard Flandrin in Paris and managed by Jean Brunelle, according to official INSEE data.
Taking the helm as France’s auto sector negotiates high-stakes change
The timing is demanding for anyone stepping into the role that sits at the center of talks between the French state and the auto industry. Negotiations over the European timeline to ban internal-combustion engines, the ramp-up of electric vehicles, and the reorganization of supply chains all put the industry presidency at the heart of concrete industrial decisions.
That the responsibility now falls to a woman signals a shift—however gradual—in the internal balance of a sector long seen as one of the most closed to atypical profiles. The industry faces tight deadlines: electric vehicles are taking a larger share of new-car sales, production volumes in France remain under pressure, and decisions over purchase incentives continue to drive discussions with Bercy, the French Finance Ministry.
