Nissan Motor has drawn up proposals to escape Renault control by purchasing a larger stake in its French parent, sources told Reuters, amid an escalating power struggle between Renault-Nissan alliance boss Carlos Ghosn and the French state, Renault’s biggest shareholder.

In a three-page document passed to the French government, the Japanese carmaker calls for deep changes to the 16-year-old alliance, giving the companies equal weight in joint decisions and “better balanced” cross-shareholdings of 25-35 per cent, government and company sources said.

Renault currently holds 43.4 per cent of Nissan and the casting vote in their Dutch-registered Renault-Nissan BV management structure. Nissan in turn owns a non-voting 15 per cent of Renault.

The Nissan demands are a response by 61-year-old Ghosn, CEO of both carmakers, to a surprise April move in which Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron raised France’s Renault stake from 15 to 19.7 per cent.

The stake increase, described as temporary, allowed the government to force a permanent doubling of its voting rights through the company’s shareholder meeting by blocking Ghosn’s proposed opt-out from a new law entering force next year.

A retaliatory plan to hand more power to Nissan – by restoring its voting rights in Renault to counter the government’s increased clout – already has the Renault board’s support.

Under French and Japanese law, the proposed cross-shareholdings would allow Nissan to vote as Renault’s biggest shareholder while depriving the French carmaker of any reciprocal say at Nissan meetings.

That amounts to a “reversal of the balance of power within the alliance to the detriment of Renault”, according to a French government source.

France is determined to maintain influence over Renault-Nissan and would support a full merger “only if the state remains the biggest shareholder”, in the words of one official.