As Carlos Ghosn Speaks Out, France’s Silence Is Deafening

Carlos Ghosn is getting ready to speak publicly for the first time since his extraordinary escape last month from house arrest in Japan to his childhood home of Lebanon, a journey which at one point apparently involved stuffing the world’s most famous auto executive into a large black box to avoid detection. The brazen operation has enraged the Japanese, who want Ghosn to stand trial on charges of financial misconduct. Ghosn isn’t backing down, and has reportedly promised to use his press conference on Wednesday to name and shame the perpetrators of what he says is a conspiracy.

While Lebanon’s jet set hails Ghosn as a returning hero and Japan impotently calls for his return, there is a pretty obvious silence emanating from one country in particular: France. Ghosn’s birthplace was Brazil and his family heritage Lebanese, but France is where he earned his academic stripes, climbed the corporate ladder at tire-maker Cie Generale des Etablissements Michelin, restructured carmaker Renault SA and became the face of its alliance with Japan’s Nissan Motor Co. Ghosn wasn’t just a French citizen, but France’s man in Japan: His dramatic arrest in 2018 came just as he had been exploring a full-blown merger of both companies, a particularly French ambition. Any prospect of score-settling on Ghosn’s part may put Paris in the spotlight as well.