Dieselgate: Paris prosecutor's office requests third trial against Renault for aggravated deception

The Paris prosecutor's office requested a third trial for aggravated deception in the Dieselgate scandal against French manufacturer Renault on June 25, following those already requested against Volkswagen and Peugeot-Citroën, we learned on Friday, July 11, from a source close to the case.

The diamond brand is suspected of having "specially calibrated" Euro 5 and Euro 6 standard vehicles sold between 2009 and 2017 so that they met regulatory parameters during homologation tests but not in normal conditions, according to the requisitions.

This alleged deception is aggravated by the fact that this calibration may have promoted atmospheric pollution by nitrogen oxides, "particularly promoting the appearance of respiratory diseases in humans" .

The final decision on a trial rests with the investigating judge, in this case, which has been the subject of extensive technical discussions and several expert opinions. When it was indicted in June 2021, the French brand denied any aggravated deception and insisted that it had always complied with applicable standards.

For the prosecutor in charge of this case, however, "all the statements made by the teams working on the design of diesel engines within SAS Renault tended to demonstrate that the objective in terms of pollution control was to "pass the standard", by de facto limiting "the standard" to the approval protocol" whereas "this standard should also be applicable under normal vehicle usage conditions" .

This "assumed strategy of optimizing the operation of the decontamination bodies and in the long term" was taken in a "collegiate" manner, assures the public prosecutor.

At this stage, there are 381 civil parties in the proceedings, individuals, associations, public bodies, including the cities of Paris, Lyon, Montpellier and Grenoble, and private companies.

The prosecution, however, emphasizes that there are "many others" potentially, citing the figure from the Fraud Control Agency, which estimated that nearly 900,000 vehicles were sold for a single type of diesel engine in question, representing a turnover of 16.85 billion euros.

Above all, the public prosecutor says that "clearly, a consumer who turns to Renault" , a manufacturer with "an excellent reputation, does not expect that his vehicle does not comply with European standards in terms of polluting emissions" .