Leftist Group Says It Killed Renault Chief

Direct Action, a small but potent band of fanatical French leftists with ties to similar groups elsewhere in Europe, claimed responsibility Tuesday for the murder of Renault Chairman Georges Besse.

Leaflets boasting of the crime and signed with the organization’s symbol of an elongated, five-pointed star were found in a Paris subway station in the Montparnasse area, where the 58-year-old Besse lived and was gunned down Monday night. Police said they were certain that the leaflets came from Direct Action.

The killing, according to the leaflet, was carried out by the Commando Pierre Overney, a unit named for a militant Maoist who was killed in a clash outside the Renault auto manufacturing plant in 1972 by a Renault guard. The guard himself was later murdered in revenge.

Source Is Clear

The leaflets also called for a world struggle “between the international proletariat and the imperialist bourgeoisie” and urged a “communist organization” to emerge from “factories and neighborhoods.”

A police spokesman said the leaflets “appeared authentic” and added that the authorities have concluded that the source of the attack “is undoubtedly Direct Action.”

After listening carefully overnight to reports from witnesses to the Besse murder, the police also said they now believe that Besse was killed by two young women wearing raincoats and speaking French.

The two alighted from a motorcycle, police said, and while one stood guard, the other fired four bullets from a 9-millimeter weapon into Besse. In the first account by police, given just after the killing, they said they thought a young man and woman were the killers.

Seen by Witnesses

One witness told police she saw two women, about 25 to 30 years old, waiting on the sidewalk.

“One said, ‘OK, let’s go,’ ” police quoted the witness as saying. “This woman approached Mr. Georges Besse, who had just gotten out of his car to go home. The woman fired two shots.

“The other woman, who had stayed some distance away, approached me. She also had a pistol in her hand. She told me in French slang, ‘You, get out of here,’ ” the witness was quoted as saying.

After the point-blank shooting, the assassin’s accomplice said, “Is it good?” and the assassin replied cooly, “Yes, it’s certain,” the witness said.

The two women then ran away, disappearing into the Montparnasse section of Paris.

Blow to French Government

The murder of one of the best known and most respected industrialists in France was a severe blow to the government of Premier Jacques Chirac, which came to power last March boasting of “terrorizing the terrorists.” After weathering a terrifying 10-day period in September when bombers, allegedly from the Middle East, killed 11 people and wounded more than 150, the Chirac government hoped that the terror had come to an end.

The latest killing raised the specter that Europe might soon experience a wave of terror similar to the one that disrupted West Germany and Italy during the 1970s when the Baader-Meinhof Gang and the Red Brigades assassinated public officials and businessmen with seeming impunity. These leftist gangs, however, were finally broken up by the police.

Almost two years ago, Direct Action and a German organization that calls itself the Red Army Faction and traces its roots to the Baader-Meinhof Gang announced that they had joined forces.

Since then, terrorists, acting on behalf of one or the other of these two groups, have killed a French Defense Ministry official, a French police inspector, two German industrialists and, now, a French industrialist. In addition, terrorists tried but failed to kill another French industrialist and another French Defense Ministry official.

Allies in Terror

Police believe that other smaller groups like the Fighting Communist Cells of Belgium also are allied to the French and German groups. Some analysts also reported a few years ago that Direct Action was thought to be working closely with the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Faction, the group of Lebanese Maronite Christians accused of planting the bombs that terrorized Paris in September.

But French officials, while hinting at the possibility that the French group might have given some technical support to the Lebanese bombers in September, never accused Direct Action of taking part.

In March, just a week after the conservative Chirac government took power, police arrested some Direct Action leaders in the city of Lyon and confiscated 10 suitcases of documents that shed some light on the obscure and fanatic organization.

Police now believe that Direct Action has split into two factions, one targeting individuals who symbolize the institutions they hate, the other content to make its point by damaging property.

Many Women Members

As an example of the second kind of violence, police cite the bombs believed set off by Direct Action last week during the visit of South African President Pieter W. Botha. The bombs damaged the headquarters of three French companies that do business with South Africa but did not kill anyone.

Both branches of Direct Action, which are reputed to have a large contingent of women members, have aimed many of their attacks on people, ministries and companies that have some connection with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the United States, South Africa or Israel. But it is hard to discern any real logic in the attacks.

Besse, in fact, had little connection with arms or, in fact, capitalism, although Renault does own more than 40% of American Motors in the United States. But Besse himself, as the chairman of a nationalized corporation, was a salaried employee of the government, not a capitalist.

Pointing this out in an editorial in Le Monde, editor Andre Fontaine denounced Direct Action as “a handful of lunatics who arrogate to themselves the right to kill in the name of a people who are horrified by the act.”