Embodiment of success, icon of the Lebanese diaspora, often cited as presidential ... In Lebanon, Carlos Ghosn, descended from a family of Lebanese immigrants in Brazil, enjoys the image of a successful industry captain.
Despite his rich professional career which has seen him hold several positions in France, the United States and Japan, Carlos Ghosn has always kept deep ties with the country of his ancestors, whose Lebanese law does not allow the authorities to deliver a national of a foreign country.
"Close contact with Lebanon"
The story of the family of the former polyglot boss of the Renault-Nissan alliance, who has been charged with four counts of financial embezzlement in Japan, where he was on parole, is linked to that of the Lebanese diaspora. And precisely that of Brazil, which has the largest number of descendants of Lebanese emigrants in the world. It is Carlos Ghosn's Lebanese grandfather, Béchara Ghosn, who, fleeing the poverty that prevailed in the land of the Cedars at the beginning of the century, crossed the Mediterranean, then the Atlantic Ocean to settle in Rio de Janeiro.
Born in 1954 in the state of Rondônia in the Amazon, Carlos Ghosn will discover Lebanon at the age of six, following health problems that pushed his parents, Jorge and Rose, a Lebanese from Nigeria, to return to the ancestral fold. The former captain of industry will live there until his 17 years, and will be schooled at the Jesuits of the college Notre-Dame de Jamhour, frequented by the elite of the country, before flying for France where he will continue his graduate studies.
"These are important years, during which we build ourselves. They are therefore part of me today and I keep close contact with Lebanon", he had confided in 2005 to the specialized magazine "Le Commerce du Levant".
But the bridges will never be cut with Lebanon, where a stamp bearing his effigy had been printed in 2017, and where the name Carlos Ghosn has often been cited among the presidential candidates in a country where the supreme magistracy is reserved for the Christian Maronite community - from which it came.
Investments in the banking and real estate sectors
If his intense activity kept him away from the Lebanese shores, where he made only short-lived visits, he will have invested throughout his career in this country. Among its investments, listed by the local media, include investments in the real estate sectors (including a project of residences in the Cedars region, in north-Lebanon) and banking, precisely within the capital of the Saradar bank.
According to the Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun, the Tokyo public prosecutor's office considers Lebanon to be "a bastion of Ghosn's alleged embezzlement of Nissan funds for his personal use". The media claims that around forty front companies registered in Beirut are linked to the former CEO of Renault.
Carlos Ghosn, who finances school and university scholarships for students of Notre-Dame de Jamhour, and who sits on the board of the prestigious Saint Joseph University, also owns a luxury residence in Beirut, in the Ashrafieh district . A pink villa with pale blue shutters that would be at the heart of suspicions of embezzlement by Japanese justice.
In Lebanon, Carlos Ghosn is also a shareholder in Ixsir, a wine estate founded in 2008. With a production of just under 500,000 bottles annually, according to Le Commerce du Levant, Ixsir is now number 3 on the local market from a country where Bacchus, god of the vine and wine, has a Roman temple with his name in Baalbek, in the Bekaa plain.
Marketed in the United States, France and Switzerland, Ixsir wine (Arabic word behind the French term elixir) is also exported ... to Japan.
Support at the top of the state
Carlos Ghosn, a Lebanese, Brazilian and French national, also enjoys a certain amount of credit and political support in Lebanon. In the first weeks after his arrest on November 19, 2018, prominent members of the government protested the conditions of his arrest.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gebran Bassil, had thus summoned the Japanese ambassador to Beirut to inform him of "question marks surrounding the circumstances of Mr. Ghosn's arrest and his conditions of detention". "The Lebanese phoenix will not be burned by the Japanese sun," said the interior minister at the time, Nohad Machnouk.
A private poster campaign under the slogan "We are all Carlos Ghosn" had appeared at the same time in certain streets of Beirut, while photos of the car magnate had been posted on social networks with the mention " Innocent".
But in this country shaken, since October 17, by an unprecedented protest movement against the political class - accused of corruption -, the return of Carlos Ghosn makes some teeth cringe.
On Twitter, Lucien Bourjeily, film director and active activist in the ongoing dispute, commented on this twist in the Ghosn affair with irony. "He came for the comfort and 'efficiency' of a Lebanese judicial system which has never put a politician in prison for corruption, even if billions of public funds are diverted each year," he said. written.
For its part, the General Directorate of Lebanese General Security confirmed in a statement that Carlos Ghosn had entered "legally" in Lebanon, adding that no measure imposed "the adoption of procedures against him" and that nothing "exposed him to legal action".
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