The fourth of six children born into the bourgeois Parisian family of Alfred and Berthe Renault, Louis Renault attended Lycée Condorcet. He w…

At the start of the First World War, in August 1914, in response to the then acute shortage of artillery ammunition, Renault suggested that car factories such as Renault could manufacture 75mm shells using hydraulic presses rather than with th…

In 1938, Renault visited Adolf Hitler, and by 1939 he had become an important supplier for the French army. At the time Hitler's Wehrmacht invaded France in 1940, Renault was in the U.S., having been sent by his government to ask for tanks. He re…

In October 1944, the provisional French government seized Louis Renault's company. The Minister of Information, Henri Teitgen, said at the time this was not a confiscation, rather "it was merely a step to get French industry back into production. …

In 1944, after the expropriation of his company and his subsequent death, Renault's last will and testament was opened to reveal that he had left his company to his 40,000 employees. At the time the company was nationalized, Renault's wif…