Renault CEO denounces ‘coup’ against him

PARIS — Thierry Bollore, Renault’s embattled CEO, said the news that the automaker’s chairman, Jean-Dominique Senard, was pushing for his removal was “totally unexpected” and “stupefying.”

Bollore told the French business newspaper Les Echos that he only learned at 4 a.m. on Wednesday, after returning to Paris on a flight from Tokyo, that Senard wanted him to leave his post at Renault, which he has held since January.

“There was not a cigarette paper’s worth of difference between us,” Bollore told Les Echos. “I have always been loyal to him.”