The November 17, 1986, thirty-five years ago, the then CEO of Renault Georges Besse he was assassinated in central Paris by an anarchist commando. Besse had been appointed head of the car manufacturer in January 1985, with the specific task of consolidating the balance sheets made ‘dancers’ by management that was not free from errors in the ten years preceding his arrival. His plan found that Renault spent too much money to keep its factories running, foreshadowed a high amount of layoffs and factory closures. It also included additional investments in the US market, through the brand Jeep.
Precisely in 1985, for the first time, the Jeep brand had reached the milestone of 200,000 units sold globally in one year.
The investment ended in 1987, when Jeep owner AMC was acquired by Chrysler. The rise of Jeep, turning back, was not enough to appease the anger of the French trade unionists, who considered the estimate of 21,000 workers at home to be excessive.
But Besse was unaware that the greatest danger could come close to home. On the evening of November 17, 1986, on the pavement of Boulevard Edgar Quinet, while heading towards his villa in the Montparnasse district, he met his killers.
Three months later the militant anarchist organization Action Directe claimed responsibility for the murder, stating that the murder was a retaliation for his reforms at Renault. Later the members of Action Directe denied any responsibility during their trial. Nathalie Menigon and Joelle Aubron were convicted, charged with her murder in March 1987 and sentenced to life in prison in 1989. Two other members of Action Directe, Jean-Marc Rouillan and Georges Cipriani, were also convicted as accomplices.
“A man and two women in a car fired several gunshots at him from close range, chilling him. The police immediately blocked the access roads to the residential area and proceeded to interrogate the rare witnesses. The assassination of Georges Besse, 58, a graduate of the Polytechnic Institute, savior of numerous industrial enterprises before being appointed by the Fabius government, in January 1985, to head the large car factory nationalized in 1946 by General De Gaulle, provoked in government circles, in the political class and in public opinion, informed of the attack by the radio and television news of the night, a deep emotion and a sort of dismay. The assassination broke a two-month truce that followed the wave of attacks that had bloodied the streets of Paris in the first weeks of September. In deficit of 13 billion francs for the first time in its long existence, with a vertical drop in sales in France and especially abroad, Regie-Renault was going through a dramatic period of crisis due to a considerable delay not only in the design of the models but also in the modernization of the plants in Billancourt. Hence the appeal to Besse for his reputation as a “savior”, as a tough and energetic man in negotiations. And in two years Besse had perhaps not accomplished the expected miracle but had managed to stop the bleeding and get the brand back on track“, We read the next day in the newspaper ‘L’Unità’.
On the Saturday before the assassination, Renault management announced the resumption of sales in the French market, with + 18%.
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