Overview
- His family announced the death on Friday, saying he died on Thursday at age 83.
- He led Renault from 1992 to 2005, overseeing its 1996 privatization and sealing a 1999 alliance with Nissan after a failed 1993 merger attempt with Volvo.
- His tenure included the 1997 closure of Renault’s Vilvoorde plant in Belgium with about 3,000 layoffs and a push into Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia.
- He came to industry from France’s top civil service, serving as Laurent Fabius’s chief of staff at Matignon before joining Renault in 1986.
- After leaving the automaker, he joined the boards of Volvo, BNP, L’Oréal and Veolia and held roles at the LFDA, the FNSP and Marseille’s IHU Méditerranée Infection.