ANGRY Renault car workers staged brief strikes in several countries yesterday as the fall-out over plans to close a large Belgian plant closure with the loss of 3,100 jobs spread and Spain halted subsidies to the company.

Belgian workers took their protest to the French embassy in Brussels. In Spain, the government shied away from the controversy and said it had decided to halt a subsidy of two billion pesetas (£8.85 million) it had earmarked to top up Renault investment in the modernisation of a factory.