Renault heirs seek compensation
Renault heirs seek compensation for state’s confiscation of firm after war
EIGHT grandchildren of one of the founders of Renault have launched a compensation claim for the state’s confiscation of the firm in 1945.
They want reparation for “material and moral” harm caused to them by the post-war nationalisation of the company, which now turns over €39 billion a year.
It is part of a campaign to rehabilitate Louis Renault, one of three brothers who founded the firm, who died in prison in 1944 awaiting trial for collaboration. He had made lorries for the Nazis, after his factories came under control of the occupiers during the Second World War.
This reversal followed a glorious First World War for the firm, including the “taxis of the Marne” episode, when 600 Renault taxis were sent to take fresh soldiers to the Battle of the Marne as the Germans approached the capital.
By the Second World War the Renault factory in Billancourt, west of Paris, was centred on the Ile Seguin on the Seine. It was bombarded by Allied forces during the war.
Louis Renault was arrested after the liberation of Paris in September 1944. Unable to speak due to illness, he died in Fresnes Prison. The provisional government headed by General de Gaulle then passed an edict confiscating and nationalising his factories (which were later privatised, in 1996).
Appeal attempts by Renault’s wife and son failed, as judges were not able to contest a government law. His wife maintained that he was murdered after torture, Time magazine reported in 1956. It added Renault had a reputation as a “Little Napoleon”, and was known to workers as “the Ogre of Billancourt”. Renault co-founders Marcel and Fernand had died in a racing accident in 1903 and of illness in 1909. While Louis was the technical brains behind the early cars he had teamed up with his brothers, who had business experience.
Louis Renault’s grandchildren have now taken advantage of a new legal process, the question prioritaire de constitutionnalité (QPC). This allows private individuals who believe they have been harmed by an unjust law to contest its constitutionality.
