IDI

"The third mistake is the most incredible: even as Dreyfus was humiliating them before the National Assembly, no one stripped the Willot brothers of their property titles. For a stunning reason: no one in the public sphere dared to buy out their share, for fear of being pointed out as the one who gave money to the Willot brothers. In 1982, they were ready to sell their shares to IDI for 64 million francs. A bargain. But it was refused. Politics came first: there could be no question of making a pact with the devil. To get around this obstacle, an implausible scheme was invented, known only to the Énarques. The state would put the company on life support, without taking legal control. At this point, the Boussac Saint-Frères Company (CBSF) was created, a private entity, to lease the industrial assets of Agache-Willot."

"As Alain Boublil explains in his book The Uprising of the Seraglio: "This disagreement stemmed from a misunderstanding. Dominique de La Martinière thought he would have authority over René Mayer, as a majority shareholder does over his CEO. But that was not the contract made between the State and René Mayer. " Dominique de La Martinière intends to keep control and demands to have the majority on the Company's board of directors. But René Mayer intends to govern with confidante personalities... A tug of war begins. The head of IDI, the majority shareholder, throws his hat into the ring and wins the bet. Of the twelve board directors, eight will be appointed from within the IDI circle including Jean-Pierre Lacour and Jean-Paul Elkann."

"To avoid a real nationalization, the government is considering creating a kind of state limited partnership, in which the capital would be held 50.10% by IDI and 49.90% by the nationalized creditor banks, foremost among them, CCF and Société Générale."