invaded France in 1940, Louis Renault was in the U.S., sent by his government to ask for tanks. He returned to find the Franco-German armistice in place. Renault was faced with the choice of cooperating with the Germans and possibly forestalling them from moving his factory and equipment to Germany, which would lead to an accusation of collaboration with the enemy. He did, in fact, put his factories at the service of Vichy France

Vichy

Vichy is a commune in the department of Allier in Auvergne in central France. It belongs to the historic province of Bourbonnais.It is known as a spa and resort town and was the de facto capital of Vichy France during the World War II Nazi German occupation from 1940 to 1944.The town's inhabitants...

, which meant that he was also assisting the Nazis. Over a period of four years, Renault manufactured 34,232 vehicles for the Germans. Renault argued that "by continuing operations he had saved thousands of workers from being transported to Germany."

During the Nazi

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

 occupation of France

Military history of France during World War II

The military history of France during World War II covers the period from 1939 until 1940, which witnessed French military participation under the French Third Republic , and the period from 1940 until 1945, which was marked by mainland and overseas military administration and influence struggles...

, the company was under the control of the Germans, with people from Daimler-Benz

Daimler-Benz

Daimler-Benz AG was a German manufacturer of automobiles, motor vehicles, and internal combustion engines; founded in 1926. An Agreement of Mutual Interest - which was valid until year 2000 - was signed on 1 May 1924 between Karl Benz's Benz & Cie., and Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft, which had...

 in key positions. Renault himself became unpopular among members of the French resistance

French Resistance

The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...

. In March 1942, the Renault factories on Île Seguin

Île Seguin

Île Seguin is an island on the Seine river between Boulogne-Billancourt and Sèvres, in the west suburbs of Paris, France.Île Seguin was home to a Renault factory, constructed between 1929 and 1934. With 30,000 laborers at its peak, the last car from the Renault production line was a Renault 5...

 had become top priority targets of the British and allied bombers of the Royal Air Force and were ultimately destroyed. Renault's health issues worsened, including his severely diminished renal function, and in 1942, he suffered aphasia

Aphasia

Aphasia is an impairment of language ability. This class of language disorder ranges from having difficulty remembering words to being completely unable to speak, read, or write....

, and was unable to speak or write.

Three weeks after France was liberated in 1944, Renault surrendered "on condition that he would not be jailed until indicted." He was arrested outside Paris on September 22, 1944, on charges of industrial collaboration

Collaborationism

Collaborationism is cooperation with enemy forces against one's country. Legally, it may be considered as a form of treason. Collaborationism may be associated with criminal deeds in the service of the occupying power, which may include complicity with the occupying power in murder, persecutions,...

 with Nazi Germany. At the time of his arrest, Renault "denied that his firm had received $120,000,000 from the Germans for war materials, said that he had kept his huge, much-bombed plant going at the request of Vichy to keep its materials and equipment out of Nazi hands and to save workers from deportation." He was incarcerated in Paris' Fresnes Prison

Fresnes Prison

Fresnes Prison is the second largest prison in France, located in the town of Fresnes, Val-de-Marne South of Paris...

 being already seriously ill at the time. The records for the exact period of his incarceration at Fresnes would later turn out to be missing. Renault was moved on October 5 to a psychiatric hospital at Ville-Evrard in Neuilly-sur-Marne

Neuilly-sur-Marne

Neuilly-sur-Marne is a commune in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.-History:On 13 April 1892, a third of the territory of Neuilly-sur-Marne was detached and became the commune of Neuilly-Plaisance.- Heraldry :...

.

When Renault's health quickly declined on October 9, 1944 he was again moved to a private nursing home at the clinic Saint-Jean-de-Dieuhe in the Rue Oudinot, Paris at the request of his family and supporters, having gone into a coma. He died on October 24, 1944, four weeks after his incarceration, still awaiting trial and having claimed to have been mistreated in Fresnes Prison

Fresnes Prison

Fresnes Prison is the second largest prison in France, located in the town of Fresnes, Val-de-Marne South of Paris...

, with his 1918 French Legion of Honor for exceptional contribution to the victory of the First World War, having been expunged by the Vichy régime

Vichy France

Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...

.

No autopsy was performed and the exact cause of Louis Renault's death remains unclear. An official report at the time gave the cause of death as uremia

Uremia

Uremia or uraemia is a term used to loosely describe the illness accompanying kidney failure , in particular the nitrogenous waste products associated with the failure of this organ....

.

Louis Renault is buried at his country home Chateau Herqueville, in Herqueville dans l'Eure

Herqueville, Eure

Herqueville is a commune in the Eure department in northern France.-Population:-History:The local lords of the manor were the Maillet du Boulay family until 1934 when the estate was purchased by Louis Renault who is buried there....

.

See: Louis Renault's burial tomb

Expropriation

In October 1944, the provisional French government seized Louis Renault's company. The Minister of Information, Henri Teitgen

Pierre-Henri Teitgen

Pierre-Henri Teitgen was a French lawyer, professor and politician.Teitgen was born in Rennes, Brittany. Made prisoner of war in 1940, he played a major role in the French Resistance....

, said at the time this was not a confiscation, rather "it was merely a step to get French industry back into production. Later a commission would examine the books, confiscate war profits, bring charges."

On January 1, 1945, four months after Louis Renault's death, an order of General Charles de Gaulle

Charles de Gaulle

Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....

's provisional government

Provisional Government of the French Republic

The Provisional Government of the French Republic was an interim government which governed France from 1944 to 1946, following the fall of Vichy France and prior to the Fourth French Republic....

 decreed the dissolution of Société Anonyme des Usines Renault and its nationalization, giving it the new name Régie Nationale des Usines Renault (RNUN).

Thus, the company Louis Renault had created and protected from expropriation by the Germans, was nationalized on the official and very thin case of collaboration. Renault was charged posthumously with "guilty enrichment obtained by those who worked for the enemy", a finding delivered without judicial proceedings, thus violating the rule of law

Rule of law

The rule of law, sometimes called supremacy of law, is a legal maxim that says that governmental decisions should be made by applying known principles or laws with minimal discretion in their application...

 and French juridical principles.

Aftermath and controversy

In 1944, after the expropriation of his company and his subsequent death, Renault's last will and testament was opened to reveal that he had left his company to his 40,000 employees. At the time the company was nationalized, Renault's wife Christiane and her son Jean-Louis owned 95% of the company stock and had received nothing, while the other stockholders were in fact compensated. By 1956 "Renault [was] now France's largest nationalized company, employing 51,000 Frenchmen, making 200,000 automobiles and a profit of $11 million a year."

The actual director of the plant during the war obtained a judgment in 1949 stating that he and the plant actually had not collaborated.

In 1956, Renault's widow, Christiane Renault, claimed that Louis Renault was murdered and sought "to establish that Louis Renault was another of the more than 9,000 Frenchmen listed by the government as having been killed by "irregular executions" in the post-Liberation vengeance," and Louis Renault's body was subsequently exhumed for autopsy. Madam Renault cited as evidence "a report showing Renault's urea content to be normal a week before his death, and an X-ray showing a fractured vertebra." In 2005, The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...

 reported that "according to eyewitness and family accounts, the previously wiry little 67-year-old had been tortured and beaten," and that "a nun at Fresnes testified that she saw Renault collapse after being hit over the head by a jailer wielding a helmet. An X-ray organised by his family indicated a broken neck vertebra."

In 2005, The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...

 said Renault had "felt that his duty was to preserve France’s manufacturing base. Military and Daimler-Benz officials arrived at the gates of his Billancourt factory to assess it for removal into Germany, together with its workforce. Renault fended them off by agreeing to make vehicles for the Wehrmacht." According to Anthony Rhodes's Louis Renault: A Biography, Renault once said of the Germans "It is better to give them the butter, or they'll take the cows." The 2005 Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...

 report said Renault attempted to save his company from displacement and absorption by Daimler-Benz

Daimler-Benz

Daimler-Benz AG was a German manufacturer of automobiles, motor vehicles, and internal combustion engines; founded in 1926. An Agreement of Mutual Interest - which was valid until year 2000 - was signed on 1 May 1924 between Karl Benz's Benz & Cie., and Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft, which had...

: "But for his efforts, Renault factories and employees would have been shipped to Germany."

Subsequent studies showed that while Renault had collaborated, "he also hived off strategic materials and sabotaged trucks. Dipsticks were marked low, for example, and engines dried and seized in action, an outcome much in evidence on the Russian Front." Suggestions that Renault management had slowed production for German occupiers was countered with the argument that workers rather than management had organized the production slow downs. A 2005 article in The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...

 said it could legally be argued that the Renault company, the "jewel in the country’s industrial crown" was procured by theft, and that "admission that Louis Renault and his company had received rough justice would raise the question of compensation – huge compensation."

In 2011, Patrick Fridenson, a business history professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris and the author of a book on Renault said “It’s extremely difficult to say to what extent Louis Renault should be considered a collaborator, he ran the risk of complete dispossession if he resisted the Germans.” Scholar Monika Ostler Riess, who had studied French and German sources found no evidence that Mr. Renault collaborated any more than his peers. “He just tried to save what he had, what he had built. The alternative to cooperating with the occupiers was to see the Germans take over his company"

Robert Paxton

Robert Paxton

Robert O. Paxton is an American political scientist and historian specializing in Vichy France, fascism and Europe during the World War II era...

 suggested in his 1975 book, Vichy France: old guard and new order: 1940-1944,
that the Renault factory might have been returned to Louis Renault and his family, had he lived longer. The Berliet

Berliet

Berliet was a French manufacturer of automobiles, buses, trucks and other utility vehicles, based in Vénissieux, outside of Lyon, France.-Early history:...

 truck factory in Lyon, remained in Marius Berliet's family possession, despite his having manufactured 2,330 trucks for the Germans. Marius Berliet, who died in 1949, had, however, "stubbornly refused to recognize legal actions against him after the war."

On July 29, 1967, Louis-Jean Renault, the only heir, received minor compensation, specifically for non-industrial, personal losses. In 1982, representatives of the Organisation Civile et Militaire and their counterparts at the company Robert de Longcamps, worked in vain for the rehabilitation of Louis Renault, saying he had been "wrongfully accused of collaboration with the enemy", their requests to Robert Badinter

Robert Badinter

Robert Badinter is a high-profile French criminal lawyer, university professor and politician mainly known for his struggle against the death penalty, the abolition of which he successfully sponsored in Parliament in 1981...

, French Minister of Justice, unheeded.

As it happened, Renault's were the only factories permanently expropriated by the French government. As of 2005, Renault

Renault

Renault S.A. is a French automaker producing cars, vans, and in the past, autorail vehicles, trucks, tractors, vans and also buses/coaches. Its alliance with Nissan makes it the world's third largest automaker...

 officials avoid mention of Louis Renault. For the centennial in 1999 of the original Renault Frères company, celebrated by Régie Renault, the company ignored the grandchildren of Louis Renault.

Despite the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen is a fundamental document of the French Revolution, defining the individual and collective rights of all the estates of the realm as universal. Influenced by the doctrine of "natural right", the rights of man are held to be universal: valid...

, which mandates just and preliminary compensation before expropriation, Louis Renault and his heirs were otherwise never officially compensated for their company. Renault returned to the private sector as a Société Anonyme (S.A

S.A. (corporation)

S.A. designates a particular type of corporation in various countries, mostly those employing the civil law. It originated in Spain during the 16th century. Depending on language, the abbreviation stands for various phrases meaning anonymous society, anonymous company, anonymous partnership, or...

) in 1996 when the French government sold 80% of the company.

In 2011, his heirs again sought to restore Renault's reputation and receive compensation for what they see as the illegal confiscation of his company by the state.” The French Communist Party

French Communist Party

The French Communist Party is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism.Although its electoral support has declined in recent decades, the PCF retains a large membership, behind only that of the Union for a Popular Movement , and considerable influence in French...

described the action as Renault's grandchildren attempting to "rewrite history" and "extort funds from the state".