Taillevent, one of the most expensive restaurants in Paris, seems an odd choice of venue for a chief executive looking to make his case for shedding up to 20,000 employees and asking four times that many to work longer hours for the same pay.

But that is where Bernd Pischets­rieder, chief executive of Volkswagen, took a group of journalists on Wednesday night on the eve of the Paris auto show, primarily to discuss what many believe may be the most severe restructuring in the history of the German carmaker.