In an exclusive open interview, the French newspaper Le Parisien interviewed the former president of the Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi alliance, Carlos Ghosn, in Beirut, where he settled with his family after his amazing escape by plane from Japan in December 2019, after he was accused there of embezzling money. From the Nissan group, concealing the income and placing him under house arrest.

The newspaper said that Carlos Ghosn agreed to talk - without reservation - about these accusations, about the exact circumstances of his escape, and about Renault's "bad" results, and he also expressed his bad feeling towards the French government, especially its Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire.

Ghosn: Japan's judicial system has dark sides, and it's an exceptional system that pushes you to commit suicide, but it stops you from doing so at the last minute.

Risky process

The interview - published by Matthew Pilolli - began with the details of the escape trip that Ghosn confirmed that he made his decision a few weeks before his departure, after coming to the conclusion that he had no chance of getting a fair deal.

"When you lose all hope, you are ready to embark on risky operations," he said, noting that several options - such as exiting by sea or entering as a member of the cabin crew - were discussed and ruled out, before the opinion settled on the trunk option, which he identified himself. .

Describing the details, Ghosn said, "I was trapped in the dark. But I followed with my ear the stages of the plan. When I heard the sound of the plane's engine, I knew I was on the runway, and when the trunk was tilted, I understood that I had entered the luggage compartment, and at that moment my partners told me that the first part of the plan had been It worked. Inside the box, I wasn't afraid of running out of oxygen, and that wasn't what worried me. I was so angry at the way I was being treated that there was no room for fear."

Ghosn indicated that there were some attempts, when asked about the possibility of being kidnapped, poisoned, or perhaps killed, and said that this is possible, "but I am in a very familiar environment and I have a good guard," noting that "it is better to be a difficult target than to be a difficult target." easy target.

He pointed out that Japan's judicial system has dark sides, and that "an exceptional system that pushes you to commit suicide, but prevents you from doing so at the last minute."


My fall was for everyone

When asked about his relationship with France, Ghosn said that he received support for a few weeks from Renault and the French state, and then they abandoned him during a meeting at the Ministry of Finance due to fear of the movement of the yellow jackets, and it was appropriate for everyone to appoint someone more flexible than me, and then Bruno stated that he He trusts Japanese justice, but a former republican visited me and said, "If I were still president, I would have sent the prime minister to Tokyo, and he wouldn't have left without you on the plane."

He added that the US ambassador said on the day of his arrest to the French ambassador: "If Mr. Ghosn had been president of General Motors, he would not have stayed in prison for 24 hours, whatever the charges against him...this is sovereignty."

Ghosn explained that it was Bruno Le Maire who ordered the tax audit, and he gave clear instructions to two members of Renault's board of directors that "we abandon Carlos Ghosn. We are no longer able to support him," noting that he did not know whether this minister was issuing orders. Or he was working alone, but he was at the center of it all.

Ghosn discussed tax problems with the French government, and said that he paid his taxes in France on his income in France as an ordinary resident, and made it clear that the French state did not miss a penny, and that all statements were made within the standards, and that “the tax office accepted my taxes for years without saying a word.” ', but the case was reopened when I was in prison in Japan.


I answered the judiciary's questions

Ghosn explained that the judges came from France to hear him in Beirut, and he answered all their questions except for those that were based on a document stolen in Lebanon by Nissan, related to a hard disk that was transported to Japan and may have been modified, and transferred to the Japanese public prosecutor, who in turn sent it To the French judges, he refers to investigations related to two evenings organized by Ghosn at the Palace of Versailles, the first to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of the alliance of companies, which cost 630,000 euros, and the second for the birthday of his wife Carol.

Ghosn has defended himself in this case and in the case of multi-million-euro payments to a Renault and Nissan distributor in Oman. "If you think there is an ambiguous relationship with the Omani distributor, how can you explain to me that Renault and Nissan continue to work with him? This supposedly Omani distributor is The source of the scandal, they did not find a single financial inflow from Renault or Nissan to him that owes me."

Carlos Ghosn spoke about the criticism directed at him for the race for sizes and the failure in luxury, and said that it was funny, because "Renault's results since 2012 - when I was in charge - culminated in strong sales growth. And in 2017, we were number one in the world, with the contribution of Nissan and Mitsubishi. Then look at Renault's board of directors letter in 2018, in which he said: We want Mr. Ghosn to continue this successful strategy for profitable growth.

The interview delved into the issue of Dieselgate, an emissions control fraud scandal discovered at Volkswagen in 2015, but Ghosn said, "We ran internal audits to see if there were any internal engineering maneuvers to hide the results. We found nothing."

When asked about the extent of the loss that he suffered, Ghosn said, "Compared to the vast majority of Lebanese, I do not complain about anything, although I lost a very large part of what I saved in my life. Some of my bank accounts, and everything is being done to prevent me from defending myself, because self-defense is very expensive."

"I had shares in Renault worth 80 euros, now it's 33 euros, and shares in Nissan worth 1,000 yen and it was liquidated at 300 yen. I lost a lot, because most of my wealth was in stocks, and at the same time I have assets in Lebanon, which is collapsing," noting that his downfall is linked to political affairs.

He said that he had no regrets such as his regret that he - which is what all companies are looking for - was earning an inappropriate salary compared to the heads of companies such as General Motors.

Ghosn and Elon Musk

When asked about Elon Musk's character and whether he was impressed by him, Ghosn said, "Did you know we made a movie together? It's on YouTube: Electric Car Revenge. Elon Musk was running a small startup at the time, and Renault was in the process of launching the electric car, which gave him Some credibility, but today Tesla produces a quarter of Renault's production, but its value is a thousand billion dollars, which is equal to Renault 100 times. "This is the project and the capabilities to implement it. When I was arrested, the shares of the three companies, Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi, fell."

And when he was asked: Will people see him on TV soon, and is the series project on Netflix still in progress?

Ghosn replied that the series mainly wanted to exploit the romantic relationship between him and his wife, then his departure from Japan and the conspiracy, and therefore he did not agree with him, and said that he found Netflix to be a "yellow newspaper", but he revealed documentaries in progress, and books, where he participated in a project. For "BBC" (BBC) and "MBC" (MBC).