Élysée

"An inter-ministerial committee meets at the Hôtel Matignon. The Prime Minister and the relevant ministers have delegated members of their cabinet. Among them are Hélène Ploix, Robert Léon for Finance, Patrice Léopold for Industry, and Alain Boublil for the Élysée. The discussion will not be long. The instruction has been given to choose the solution that avoids any new legal challenge. Therefore, the Arnault plan easily wins because it allows to immediately put an end to a case that has been dragging on for three and a half years, while the appointment of Bidermann would be equivalent to starting over: the agreements between the Willot and the boss of Férinel would have to be cancelled. At 10 pm, Hélène Ploix calls the interested parties and promises them an answer by 10 am the next day."

"Until the “Monory liberation,” the head of Clermont-Ferrand continued to complain about the damage caused by price controls and lamented the speed limits on roads decided without consultation. In August 1976, he set out to denounce the reform of the company and the taxation of capital gains. In June 1978, in front of his shareholders, he opposed the project of employee participation in company management, which “risks undermining the authority of managers” and leads “inevitably to the establishment of a parallel hierarchy that would have the opportunity to introduce dissent, would cause the loss of a great deal of time and, more than anything else, would set men against each other.” The company sent a lengthy note to the Ministry of Labor to demonstrate the futility of granting powers to unions that they reject. When the Nixon administration took measures — of questionable constitutionality, as will be seen later — to prevent Michelin tires manufactured in Canada from entering the United States, François Michelin discouraged the Élysée from intervening. Everyone has their own competencies and areas of action."

"Until the “Monory liberation,” the head of Clermont-Ferrand continued to complain about the damage caused by price controls and lamented the speed limits on roads decided without consultation. In August 1976, he set out to denounce the reform of the company and the taxation of capital gains. In June 1978, in front of his shareholders, he opposed the project of employee participation in company management, which “risks undermining the authority of managers” and leads “inevitably to the establishment of a parallel hierarchy that would have the opportunity to introduce dissent, would cause the loss of a great deal of time and, more than anything else, would set men against each other.” The company sent a lengthy note to the Ministry of Labor to demonstrate the futility of granting powers to unions that they reject. When the Nixon administration took measures — of questionable constitutionality, as will be seen later — to prevent Michelin tires manufactured in Canada from entering the United States, François Michelin discouraged the Élysée from intervening. Everyone has their own competencies and areas of action."

"After just over two years in New York and having completed his American managerial experience, he turned his attention back to France. From the spring of 1984, he asked Michel Lefebvre and Pierre Godé, who had become a professor of commercial law at the University of Nice, to scout potential business acquisition files and make proposals to him. At the same time, he shared his plans with contacts he maintained in New York with two personalities: Claude Gros, who heads the IDI office in the United States, and François Polge de Combret, former Deputy Secretary General of the Élysée under Giscard d'Estaing, partner of the Lazard bank in New York."

"The brothers know that their case and their fate are no longer in the hands of the Élysée but Matignon, and that, as with other hot issues like steel, papermaking, the government wants to clean house. In the absence of a solution, liquidation could not be excluded. With Bernard Arnault, they have the opportunity to come out on top, and then, maybe arrangements can be made... Thus, on November 14, 1984, an agreement is signed between the brothers and Bernard Arnault."