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RENAULT

Former Renault chief to name opponents in pre-recorded video

Arrested former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn is set to name the people he believes are responsible for his downfall in Japan, his wife said in an interview on Sunday as she fled Tokyo out of fear she could be detained.

Former Renault chief to name opponents in pre-recorded video
Carlos Ghosn and his wife Carole leave the office of his lawyer Junichiro Hironaka in Tokyo on April 3. Photo: Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP
Ghosn was re-arrested last week in the Japanese capital over fresh allegations of financial misconduct which will see him held in custody until at least April 14.
 
Speaking to the Journal du Dimanche newspaper in France, his wife Carole detailed the latest twists in the extraordinary saga, saying that Ghosn had recorded a video interview in English before his detention. 
   
“He names the people responsible for what has happened to him. The lawyers have it. It will be released soon,” she told the newspaper.
 
Carole added that she had fled Tokyo on a flight to Paris — with support from the French ambassador to Tokyo — because she “felt in danger.”
 
Despite her Lebanese passport being confiscated by Japanese authorities, Carole said she was able to use her American passport to board a flight and was accompanied by the ambassador to the airport.
   
“He didn't leave me until the plane,” she explained. “Up to the last second, I didn't know if they were going to let me fly. It was surreal.”
 
 
The role of the French ambassador could lead to fresh friction between the countries over the highly sensitive case, which involves Nissan and French car maker Renault, which were both previously run by Ghosn.
   
Japanese news channel NHK said prosecutors in Tokyo wanted to question Carole on a voluntary basis.
 
Other reports in Japan say that investigators are looking into allegations that company money allegedly misused by Ghosn could have transited through a business that was run by his wife.
 
'Different person'
 
Carole intends now to try to pressure the French government to do more for her husband whose 108-day imprisonment in Japan between November 19 and March 6 had left him a “different person,” she told The Financial Times in a  separate interview.
   
France's foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Saturday he had raised the case during talks with his Japanese counterpart Taro Kono on the sidelines of the meeting of Group of Seven (G7) foreign ministers in the French resort of Dinard.
 
Le Drian said he had “reminded him of our attachment to the presumption of innocence and the full rights of consular protection.”
 
 
Japanese authorities are looking into new allegations that Ghosn transferred some $15 million in Nissan funds between late 2015 and mid-2018 to a dealership in Oman.
   
They suspect around $5 million of these funds were siphoned off for Ghosn's use, including for the purchase of a luxury yacht and financing personal investments. Prosecutors say Ghosn “betrayed” his duty not to cause losses to Nissan “in order to benefit himself.”
   
Ghosn denies the allegations and says he is also innocent of the three formal charges he faces: two charges of deferring his salary and concealing that in official shareholders' documents, and a further charge related to investment losses.
   
The man previously seen as the most powerful figure in the global car industry told French channel TF1 last week that he was “a combative man and an innocent man” and vowed to “defend myself to the bitter end”.
   
And he voiced concern that he would not be given a fair hearing in Japan where around 99 percent of trials result in a conviction.

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RENAULT

France ready to cut Renault stake to shore up Nissan partnership: minister

France is ready to consider cutting its stake in Renault in the interests of consolidating the automaker's alliance with Nissan, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Saturday.

France ready to cut Renault stake to shore up Nissan partnership: minister
A Renault employee works at the automaker's factory in Maubeuge, northern France. File photo: Ludovic MARIN / AFP
He was speaking in Japan after Italian-US carmaker Fiat Chrysler pulled the plug on its proposed merger with Renault, saying negotiations had become “unreasonable” due to political resistance in Paris.
 
In an interview with AFP on the sidelines of the G20 finance ministers meeting in Japan, Le Maire said Paris might consider reducing the state's 15-percent stake in Renault if it led to a “more solid” alliance between the Japanese and French firms.
 
“We can reduce the state's stake in Renault's capital. This is not a problem as long as, at the end of the process, we have a more solid auto sector and a more solid alliance between the two great car manufacturers Nissan and Renault,” he told AFP.
 
Last week, FCA stunned the auto world with a proposed “merger of equals” with Renault that would — together with Renault's Japanese partners Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors — create a car giant spanning the globe. The combined group would have been by far the world's biggest, with total sales of some 15 million vehicles, compared to both Volkswagen and Toyota, which sell around 10.6 million apiece.
 
But the deal collapsed suddenly on Thursday, with FCA laying the blame at the door of Paris. 
 
“It has become clear that the political conditions in France do not currently exist for such a combination to proceed successfully,” FCA said in a statement.
 
Le Maire said Renault should concentrate on forging closer ties with its Japanese partner Nissan before seeking other alliances.
 
Things need to be done “in the right order…. First the alliance (between Nissan and Renault) should be consolidated and then consolidation (more generally) and not one before the other.”
 
“Otherwise, everything risks collapsing like a house of cards,” he warned.
 
The minister said it would be up to the bosses of Renault and Nissan to decide how to push the alliance forward as ties between the two firms have been strained after the shock arrest of former boss Carlos Ghosn.
 
Renault is pushing for a full merger between the pair but there is deep scepticism of the plan at Nissan.
 
There were varied reactions from the French unions Saturday.
 
“The government is behaving like the agent of the big shareholders, favouring short-term profit to the detriment of the interests of the country,” said Fabien Gache, of the CGT union.
 
Cutting the state's share in Renault was abandoning its responsibility in the country's auto industry, he argued.
 
Franck Daout of the CFDT union said it backed a three-way alliance between Renault, Nissan and Japan's Mitsubishi — but not one between Nissan and Renault until the alliance had reached a “safe and sustainable maturity”.
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