Senard

After more than a year of very turbulent times, Renault and the Alliance seem to be gradually getting back on track. After the many departures to PSA, the arrival in the opposite direction of Gilles Le Borgne at the head of engineering could already be interpreted as a symbol.

 

The finalization of Luca de Meo's recruitment is another. Indeed, even if he will not officially take over the reins until July, with his appointment and the movements that are already being recorded in the management teams, we can already which path Jean-Dominique Senard intends to put the company on.

 

First of all, the idea that the automotive industry is an industry like any other (and where the invocation of a strong specificity would always be a form of resistance to change) seems to have faded away.
Apart from the fact that the case for the autonomous vehicle, which had powerfully served to accredit this thesis throughout the industry, is now arousing less and less enthusiasm and more and more doubt, at Renault, it is the painful experience of the Thierry Bolloré era that is leading to this return to fundamentals.

Last week Carlos Ghosn told us a story about Nissan, Renault and the Alliance that ended tragically in 2019. Indeed, for him, if his own trajectory broke in November 2018, then it could not be any different from that of the companies he was managing and the destiny of this fragile Alliance that he was leading.

 

There's nothing surprising about that since that's the way he's wanted history to be written for years: just as Jean-Luc Mélenchon [leader of the radical left in France] said "the Republic is me", Carlos Ghosn went repeating "the Alliance is me" and suggesting that if he was no longer there then everything would fall apart.