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Louis Renault (centre) with Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring at the Belin auto show in 1937
Louis Renault (centre) with Hitler at the Berlin auto show in 1937. The Renault company was nationalised in 1945 as punishment for alleged collaboration with the occupiers. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
Louis Renault (centre) with Hitler at the Berlin auto show in 1937. The Renault company was nationalised in 1945 as punishment for alleged collaboration with the occupiers. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Renault descendants demand payout for state confiscation

This article is more than 12 years old
Grandchildren of Louis Renault begin legal battle to clear his name and counter allegations that he collaborated with Nazis

It was one of the most shameful and shady chapters of French history: the collaboration of industrialists and business owners with the Nazis during the German occupation.

A historical can of worms was reopened in a Paris court on Wednesday when the grandchildren of the inventor and carmaker Louis Renault began a legal battle, claiming his famous company was unfairly confiscated by the state as punishment for allegedly collaborating with the occupiers.

Renault, who founded the auto giant in 1898 with his brothers, died in prison while awaiting trial for collaboration in 1944, two months after the liberation of France. In January 1945 Charles de Gaulle and the provisional government signed a decree confiscating the company and nationalising it, accusing Renault of working for the Germans and providing their army with vehicles and services to help the Nazi war effort.

Renault's seven grandchildren have now seized on a new law introduced by Nicolas Sarkozy to argue that the confiscation did not abide by the French constitution. Their lawyers argue that no other company was subjected to the same treatment as Renault and that it was unfairly nationalised as punishment without Louis Renault ever going to trial. They are demanding financial compensation from the state.

The case has sparked outrage from the Communist party, communist trade unions, deportee groups and some historians, who accuse the family of trying to rewrite history. The Communist party said it vehemently opposed "any attempt to rehabilitate Louis Renault".

Hélène Renault-Dingli, one of the grandchildren bringing the case, said the battle was about how unfair and unconstitutional the state had been to confiscate the company. "This is not a re-reading of history," she told French TV channel TF1, and said she welcomed a new debate among historians about what really happened in Renault's car factories during the second world war.

There is no doubt among historians that Renault provided motors, vehicles and technology for the Nazi occupiers during the war. The question is whether the company did this willingly or whether, as the family suggests, it had no choice.

Henry Rousso, the celebrated war historian, told Le Figaro: "Renault worked for the German war economy. With what degree of enthusiasm or constraint? That remains largely to be studied."

Some historians point out that other big French industrial groups, Peugeot and Citroën, who also worked for the Germans, chose to support the resistance and allies from 1942 to 1943.

In 2010 the Renault family took legal action against a museum exhibition in the tiny Limoges village of Oradour-sur-Glane, where villagers were massacred by German troops in 1944. The exhibition featured a photo of Louis Renault with Hitler and Göring at the Berlin auto show in 1939. The family said it was wrong to use a prewar photo as part of an exhibit about a 1944 massacre. Judges first ruled that the photo could remain in place in the name of history. However, an appeals court overturned the decision and ruled the picture was not linked to the massacre and should be taken down.

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