They can blame the French state all they want, "sources" suggest that it was Nissan's reluctance torpedoing the deal:
Nissan had signaled that its representatives would abstain. But during the meeting, French government representatives sought to persuade Nissan to endorse the deal. The meeting was held up three times for consultations, people familiar with the events said.
Fiat Chrysler had also become increasingly aware of the pitfalls of pursuing a Renault merger without its larger alliance partner's buy-in. "Nissan needs to be in the loop," an FCA source told Reuters shortly before the deal fell apart.
When it came to a vote, the Nissan representatives abstained, the leftist CGT union voted against, and all other directors voted for it. When it was the French state representatives' turn to vote, they insisted that the vote be postponed, people familiar with the events said.
France’s lead representative on the board, Martin Vial, said finance minister Le Maire would hold talks with his Japanese counterparts over the weekend and in Tokyo on Monday, after the G20 summit, and a vote could then take place on Tuesday.
Senard requested that Fiat Chrysler grant a delay. Instead, Fiat Chrysler quickly rejected the request, a person familiar with the events said.
On the French side, Fiat Chrysler was seen as being in too great a hurry to lock down the deal. French officials, however, signaled they saw no need to rush.
I believe FCA probably wanted to get Renault's and Nissan's EV tech, but without buy-in and control of Nissan that's difficult to do. Note that this week BMW joined EV forces with Jaguar-Land-Rover.
Also note that while without Renault the FCA-Tesla pool becomes smaller, there's also a shrinking window of opportunity for FCA to get its EV act together and avoid paying billions per year to Tesla for CO₂ credits. FCA has no EV effort worth speaking of, it takes at least ~5 years to start a credible one, so acquiring one was their only hope.
