Japan's Nissan Motor and France's Renault, together with junior ally Mitsubishi Motors, agreed last week that they would retool the alliance to put themselves on a more equal footing.

"I've concluded that we need to considerably simplify our decision processes in the alliance," Renault chairman Jean-Dominique Senard said in an interview published on Le Figaro's website.

"I want it to be tight and made up of those people who have power to take decisions in each company," he added.

The removal of Carlos Ghosn, credited with rescuing Nissan from near-bankruptcy in 1999, from the head of the alliance has raised a cloud of uncertainty about its future.

Senard said that boosting cross-shareholdings was not currently under consideration.

"The teams around me are not mobilised on this subject," he said. "The only merger I'm working on is that of our cultures.

(Reporting by Matthieu Protard and Leigh Thomas; Editing by Gareth Jones)