If you are listening to me through this video today
it means that I was not able to make the press
conference that I planned for April the 11th.
But I wanted to tell you the essence of the message
that I wanted to develop on April the 11th,
and hopefully answer so many questions that I'm
sure you have on your mind.
The first message is I'm innocent.
It's not new.
You have heard it from me in January.
I repeat it today.
I'm innocent of all the charges that
have been brought against me.
And I'm also innocent of all the accusation that came around
these charges that are all biased, taken out of context,
twisted in a way to paint a personage of greed
and a personage of dictatorship.
But let's talk about the charges.
The FIEL, the contract with Shinsei Bank,
and the compensation we paid to Juffali.
I remain on the same position.
I spent 108 days in prison, because I've
been always consistent with this position
that I was innocent of all the charges.
The second message I want to send to you
is the fact that I love Japan, and I love Nissan.
Nobody spends 20 years in a country.
Nobody works 20 years in the leadership of a company
without love, and without attachment,
and without engagement, particularly when
these years have been marked by so many accomplishments,
and so much result. I came to Japan
in 1999, not by calculation.
I came to Japan in 1999, because I
was fascinated with the company, and I
was fascinated by the challenge of reviving Nissan.
And, you know very well, that I committed since the beginning
all my career to the success of the Nissan revival plan.
And thanks to the hard work of the hundreds of thousands
people working in Nissan, and particularly
the Japanese people working in Nissan,
we have been successful.
But my love for Japan and my love for Nissan
is untainted today after all the ordeal I've been through.
I want you to know that.
I want you to be convinced of that.
We've done many things in Nissan I'm proud of.
We have also contributed to the economy of Japan,
to the development of the management in Japan.
All of the things will remain as great memories
and great achievement.
That I'm sure after all the last months in a certain way
people will look at them with more fairness and more
objectivity.
The third point I want to tell you that this is a conspiracy.
This is not about specific events.
This is not about again greed.
This is not about dictatorship.
This is about a plot.
This is about conspiracies.
This is about backstabbing.
That's what we're talking about.
And why?
So you can say why this happened?
Why it's happened because that there was first
fear that the next step of the lines in term of convergence
and in terms moving toward a merger would in a certain way
threaten some people or eventually threaten
the autonomy of Nissan which, by the way,
has never been threatened for the last 19 years
when the alliance was created.
I've been the fiercest defender of the autonomy of Nissan.
And I made it very clear that no matter
what other steps in the future, this would continue.
But this autonomy must be based on performance.
Nobody gets autonomy for the sake of autonomy.
People get autonomy because they can
be more performing with autonomy,
and that was where the fear came,
because the performance of Nissan is not good.
It has degraded it a lot.
Three profit warningS in a couple of years, many scandals.
Not the fact that bad things happen
at the level of the company, but the fact
that when you react to the bad things happening
in your company, you must be trusted.
And in this case, in many cases, it
could not be trusted, because the company said
problems were fixed where they were not fixed.
This is where we had the problem with the actual management
of the company, so these people are known.
I have a lot of respect for Nissan employees.
I'm talking here about the few executives who,
obviously for their own interests
and for their own selfish fears, are creating
a lot of value destruction.
Names, you know them.
We're talking about people who really played a very dirty game
into what's happening.
But hopefully, the truth will happen,
and the facts will happen.
But at the end of the day, during all this period,
I suffered not only because of my case,
but who was taking care of Nissan?
Who was taking care of the brand?
Who was defending corporate value?
Who was defending the shareholder interest?
When you look at the decline of the share,
when you look at the absolutely mediocre performance
of the company where people are proud to say:
we're not going to do this, we're not going to do that.
But at the same time, they don't tell you
what we are going to do.
What is the vision for the future?
What is the vision to enhance the performance of Nissan?
What's the vision to enhance the alliance into the future?
This becomes very sad.
And obviously for somebody like me, it's sickening.
For somebody who has dedicated 19,
20 years to do the contrary, which
is create the corporate value, enhance the brand,
seeing the lack season and the lack of attention
is really very difficult to take.
I'm worried.
I'm worried because obviously the performance of Nissan
is declining.
But also I'm worried because I don't
think that there is any vision for the lines being built.
Frankly, sitting down around the table being
consensual about decision, this is not
a vision for something in an industry which
is as competitive as the car industry.
You need to show the future.
You need to just make sure about what is our role
into the future.
You need to make sure that from time to time
leadership is exercised.
And leadership means we do what's good for the company,
not for what you are capable to agree on.
This is not dictatorship.
This is leadership.
It's exercised in many company.
And for people who say, well, there
is only two options, consensus or dictatorship,
that means they don't know what leadership is about.
And this is very sad at the head of an organisation as complex
and as large as other lines can be or as Nissan can be.
Finally, what I would like to say is my big hope,
my biggest wish is to have a fair trial.
I am privileged to have three competent lawyers around me who
are going to defend the case.
But they don't share with me a lot
of serenity about the fairness of the trial.
I'm not a lawyer.
I'm not competent in this matter,
but I will leave it to them to explain
to you what are the specific conditions that
are required to ensure a fair trial that I can be hopefully
vindicated.
Thank you for your attention.
And I'm sorry I was not able to share more with you
and respond to many questions that you have in your mind.
But hopefully, we will do it at a certain point in time.