France faced severe political embarrassment on Friday after carmaker Renault said the three top executives it sacked for industrial espionage in January might not be spies after all. French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said the country's second-biggest autos group must face "all the consequences" now that it thinks it might have been tricked.
The scandal has shaken the company to its core, and at one point threatened to trigger a diplomatic spat with China. Chief Operating Officer Patrick Pelata acknowledged his own job was now under threat as he admitted in a newspaper interview there were reasons to doubt Renault had suffered industrial espionage.
In January the carmaker lodged a legal complaint over suspicions of spying targeting its high-profile electric vehicle programme, amid fears that information had been passed to a foreign power. The three sacked executives denied wrongdoing and are already taking legal action against their former employer, which when grouped with its partner Nissan ranks as the world's third biggest carmaker.
"What counts today is getting to the truth and getting there quickly and if the suspicions were unfounded that justice be done, confidence restored and compensation paid," Lagarde said in an interview on RMC radio. The case has strained relations between the French government and Renault, as the 15 percent state-owned carmaker came under fire for not informing authorities of its suspicions soon enough and carrying out its own investigation first. The affair also threatened a diplomatic spat when news of the sackings broke in January, after a government source said investigators were following up a possible link with China in initial probes before a formal inquiry was launched.