Revolving Door &

Bernard Hanon, the chairman of the board of Renault, the nationally owned French automaker, was sleeping at the Carlyle Hotel in New York City two weeks ago when the ax fell. At 4 a.m. an aide called from Paris to read him a front- page article from the pro-Socialist daily Le Matin. The paper announced that Hanon, 53, would soon be replaced by Georges Besse, 57, chairman of the Pechiney state-owned aluminum conglomerate. Shocked and angry, Hanon caught the next Concorde back to Paris. Summoned to Premier Laurent Fabius' office early last week, Hanon was forced to resign. Two days later the French Cabinet confirmed Besse's appointment.

Held up by the Socialists as a model of an efficiently run nationalized French industry, Renault has been engulfed in red ink since Hanon took over three years ago. Last year it fell from first to sixth place in sales among European automobile firms and lost nearly $1 billion.

Hanon's defenders argue that he was made the scapegoat for problems that were largely beyond his control. Indeed, the entire French auto industry has been hard hit by recession and government austerity measures; total car sales in France dropped by 12.9% in 1984. Moreover, Hanon was hampered by the government in trying to trim his work force of 98,000. Says one company official: "The government asked too much of Bernard Hanon, to be an effective corporate executive and to run Renault as a social showcase." Hanon attempted to toe that fine line with a plan that called for a reduction of some 9,000 jobs. Although the proposal did not involve any forced layoffs, it was rejected last month by the unions.

Ironically, Hanon had been a major contributor to the firm's earlier successes. Known jokingly as "l'americain" among his colleagues, he received both an M.B.A. and a doctorate in economics at Columbia University before becoming Renault's U.S. marketing director in 1959. Hanon spent his 26-year career at Renault earning a reputation as a visionary car executive. The architect of Renault's move into the U.S. market, he took part in the development of the successful R-5 subcompact (Le Car) in the 1970s. The company now owns 46% of American Motors and 41% of Mack Trucks. Both have become profitable bright spots in the company's panorama of gloom. AMC made an estimated $15 million last year, after years of losses, while Mack has been in the black since Renault bought into the heavy-truck manufacturer in mid-1983.

But Hanon could not escape blame for a number of recent strategic errors. Renault's new Super-5 turned out to be too expensive ($4,095) for a two-door subcompact and looked too much like the old R-5. Early sales have run about 25% below projections. Conversely, demand for the new top-of-the-line R-25 has far outstripped production levels. Concedes a French government official: "In the all-out war that the auto industry has become, such errors are fatal."

Although Besse has no experience in the industry, he is renowned for imposing efficiency on giant operations. A graduate of Paris' Ecole Polytechnique, the prestigious engineering school, he was a founder of the French nuclear industry. At Pechiney since 1982, Besse launched a reorganization that took the conglomerate from a $484 million loss to a $53 million profit last year. "Besse is a great business manager," exults one government official. "He has always succeeded at everything." Now at Renault, Besse may meet the ultimate test of his business acumen.