PARIS--French car maker Renault SA is set to hold an emergency board meeting on Thursday afternoon to discuss the latest attempts by the French government to increase its control over the company, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The topic on the meeting's agenda: The French state's plans to assure itself double-voting rights at the coming April 30 annual shareholder's meeting. Last week, the state said it would spend up to EUR1.23 billion ($1.3 billion) to buy more shares in the auto firm and vote against a pending resolution to maintain a one-share, one-vote system.

The person familiar with the matter said that the state's announcement last week was "a shock that surprised everyone" on Renault's board of directors.

The issue of voting rights has flared because of France's so-called Florange law, a measure that was passed last year and allows those who own shares of a public company for longer than two years to have double-voting rights. The law can be overridden if a company's shareholders adopt a resolution at a general meeting that limits all stock owners to single-voting status.

The potential of expanded state influence over Renault is troubling to the car maker's main partner, Nissan Motor Co., which owns 15% of Renault shares with no voting rights, the person said.

For Nissan, the lack of voting power at Renault meetings is especially vexing given that Renault has a 43.4% stake with full voting rights in the Japanese manufacturer even though the French firm is the smaller entity.

The French government said last week it would increase its stake from 15% to 20% with the sole intention to block the resolution. Economy minister Emmanuel Macron told French media the state would later sell the extra shares and reduce its holdings back to 15% after the meeting.

Analysts and those close to Renault said the 20% stake should be enough for the government to defeat the resolution because of the low turnout rate of voting shareholders at past annual meetings.

Write to Jason Chow at jason.chow@wsj.com

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