Today in History - November 17: Car giant boss who cut 20,000 jobs pays the ultimate price

The head of famous French car company Renault was shot dead on the pavement outside his home on November 19, 1986, in a crime that shocked the nation.

Georges Besse had just stepped out from his chauffeur-driven car when two assassins on a motorbike pulled up and shot him several times.

He fell to the pavement, fatally hit, as one of his young children watched from an upstairs window.

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Initially, no person or group admitted carrying out the assassination but French police suspected a feared anarchist terrorist network, known as Action Direct.

They had already shown their readiness to kill to achieve their goals by shooting dead a top French defence official and carrying out bombings at government buildings just months earlier.

Then three months after Besse's killing, authorities received letters from Action Direct saying they'd carried out the murder.

The documents said the killing of Besse was in retaliation for the sweeping job cuts at Renault overseen by him.

He'd been appointed to the famous but ailing French company to turn around poor sales and drive up efficiency.

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Besse was able to return Renault to profit, but to achieve that he closed several factories made 21,000 workers redundant in his first 18 months as boss.

The sweeping staff cuts left trade unions and left-wing political groups in France furious.

Critics of Besse were also angered by his move to invest Renault money overseas - in the American Motors vehicle company which was losing money.

In March 1987, police were given a lead over the Besse killing and raided an isolated farmhouse in France and arrested four members of Action Direct.

Two of them - Nathalie Menigon and Joelle Aubron, were charged with murdering the Renault boss.

The two women were sentenced to life imprisonment in 1989.

Two other Action Directe members, Jean-Marc Rouillan and Georges Cipriani, were also handed life sentences after being convicted as accomplices.

Aubron was released from prison in 2004 and Menigon was freed four years later.

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