Louis Loucheur

Louis Loucheur

Louis Albert Joseph Loucheur (born August 12, 1872 in Roubaix , † November 22, 1931 in Paris ) was a French businessman, politician, industrial and cartel lobbyist of the Third French Republic.

Life

Louis Loucheur came from a moderately wealthy Protestant family; his father was an architect. Louis received a school education at the renowned 'Lycée Faidherbe' in Lille . Then training as a civil engineer and starting his career at the 'Compagnie des chemins de fer du Nord', a railway company. In 1896 he married the entrepreneur's daughter Suzanne Lenicque, they had two daughters. L. died of a heart attack in 1931 and was buried in the Montparnasse cemetery (div. 10).

Entrepreneurial career

Loucheur set up his own business in 1899 by founding a construction company with a fellow student, the 'Société Giros et Loucheur', which was renamed a little later to 'Girolou' and in 1908 to 'Société générale d'entreprises' (SGE, today Vinci ). Business flourished and L. became a leading entrepreneur in the French construction, electricity and transportation sectors.

Political career

Through his industrial activities Loucheur came into contact with the political milieu, also with questions of armament. In December 1916 , faced with the heavy artillery crisis, Loucheur became Undersecretary of State in the État à l'Artillerie et aux Munitions, at the side of the Minister for Armaments and War Production, Albert Thomas, in the Aristide Briand government. At the beginning of his appointment, Loucheur decided on the strategy of "production totale" and was supported in this by three top-class engineers, Xavier Loisy, Edmond Philippar and Paul Munich. At the end of September 1917 he replaced Paul Painlevé Albert Thomas as Minister of Armaments in the new government. Politically close to his successor, Georges Clemenceau, he was involved in the organization of the military command from the end of 1917. After the war, Loucheur became the 'Ministre de la Reconstitutionindustrie'. At the Versailles conference he was the chief economic advisor to Georges Clemenceau for the negotiation of the peace treaty and was directly involved in discussions with David Lloyd George , the British Prime Minister. He received the 'Army Distinguished Service Medal' from the British for his services.

Loucheur was elected to the National Assembly as a Conservative MP for 'Avesnes-sur-Helpe' in November 1919, despite a press campaign denouncing him as a 'profiteur de guerre'. He later joined the 'Républicains de gauche', a middle-class party that was often indispensable for forming governments and which he soon led. Between January 1921 and January 1922 L. was minister for the 'Régions libérées' (= Alsace-Lorraine ) in a new government Aristide Briand . In the summer and autumn of 1921 he negotiated with Walther Rathenau in Wiesbaden on the question of German reparations. From March to June 1924 L. was 'Ministre du Commerce, de l'Industrie des Postes et Télégraphes' in the (third) government of Raymond Poincaré , he took part in the renewal of the 'Conseil du Commerce' and other economic reforms. From November 1925 to March 1926 he was 'Ministre des Finances' in the (seventh) Aristide Briand government. In the summer he was delegated to the World Economic Conference in Geneva in May 1927 , which he had personally suggested in 1925. From June 1928 to February 1930 Loucheur was 'Ministre du Travail et de la Prévoyance sociale' of other governments under Raymond Poincaré and Aristide Briand and of the first André Tardieu cabinet . He mainly dealt with the housing shortage, social security and labor disputes.

Loucheur's commitment to Europe

Reliable supporter of the pro-European orientation of Aristide Briand, Loucheur represented the current of modernizers and the cartel movement among French entrepreneurs. Otherwise he advocated industrial rapprochement between France and Germany and was an active promoter of ideas and projects for European economic development in the 1920s. In this respect he can be seen as a pioneer of the European Economic Community that was only realized later .

In particular, he formulated the «projet Loucheur», which praised the development of production cartels and a lowering of customs barriers in Europe. These ideas formed the basis of the work of the World Economic Conference , which he had initiated in 1925 and which met in Geneva in 1927. As Vice-President of this conference, Loucheur played an essential role in its organization and debates, and particularly influenced its decisions. That conference was a kind of laboratory of ideas for Europe's economic future. Loucheur chaired the French section of the Paneuropean Union , in the middle of which he founded an economic committee made up of European industrialists. After all, L. was the pioneer of the economic perspective of the Projet d'Union européenne , which was presented by Aristide Briand in September 1929.

Criticism of Loucheur's appropriation as 'Europeans'

Loucheur's involvement in Europe could primarily have sprung from the business interests of French industrialists. It is noticeable that at the World Economic Conference in 1927 - together with other cartel lobbyists such as Henri de Peyerimhoff and Clemens Lammers - he stood up for entrepreneurial freedom and against a supranational cartel control authority under the umbrella of the League of Nations . In doing so, he opposed the balancing of entrepreneurial power through democratic rights of control, as represented by the French left. As a pioneer for a European economic democracy, Loucheur is ruled out - he represented a Europe of internationally cartelized capital, a Europe of entrepreneurs. The 'European' idea was only in the bud.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ «Où sont passés les personnages célèbres anciens élèves du Lycée Faidherbe? » ( Memento of the original from April 12, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , on the page de l'Association des anciens élèves de Faidherbe 
2. ↑ Dominique Barjot, Les cartels, une voie vers l'intégration européenne? Le rôle de Louis Loucheur (1872-1931) , in: Revue économique 64 (2013), p. 1044.
3. ↑ Louis LOUCHEUR . In: Base de données des députés français depuis 1789 . French National Assembly. Retrieved June 9, 2015.
4. ^ Home of heroes en anglais. ( Memento of the original from March 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
5. ↑ Dominique Barjot, Les cartels, une voie vers l'intégration européenne? Le rôle de Louis Loucheur (1872-1931) , in: Revue économique 64 (2013), p. 1061.
6. ↑ Kaiser, Wolfram; Schot, Johan W. (2014): Writing the Rules for Europe. Experts, Cartels, and International Organizations. Basingstoke [u. a.]: Palgrave Macmillan (Making Europe: Technology and Transformations 1850-2000, 4), pp. 198-199; Dominique Barjot, Les cartels, une voie vers l'intégration européenne? Le rôle de Louis Loucheur (1872-1931) , in: Revue économique 64 (2013), p. 1061.
7. ↑ Dominique Barjot, Les cartels, une voie vers l'intégration européenne? Le rôle de Louis Loucheur (1872-1931) , in: Revue économique 64 (2013), p. 1062.

Works on L. Loucheur

• Dominique Barjot, Les cartels, une voie vers l'intégration européenne? Le rôle de Louis Loucheur (1872-1931) , in: Revue économique 64 (2013), pp. 1043-1066.
• Stephen D. Carls, Louis Loucheur, ingénieur, homme d'État, modernisateur de la France, 1872-1931 , Presses universitaires du Septentrion, Villeneuve-d'Ascq, 2000
• Stephen D. Carls, Louis Loucheur and the Shaping of Modern France 1916-1931, Louisiana State University Press (1993-06).
• Louis Loucheur, Carnets secrets, 1908-1932 , Paris, Bruxelles, Brepols, 1962.
• Véronique Pradier, "L'Europe de Louis Loucheur: le projet d'un homme d'affaires en politique", Études et documents , Paris, Comité pour l'histoire économique et financière de la France, tome V, 1993, p. 293-306.

Web links

• Newspaper article about Louis Loucheur in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .