Édouard-Jean Empain

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Baron Édouard-Jean Empain (born October 7, 1937 in Budapest , † June 21, 2018 in Pontoise ) was a Belgian entrepreneur and businessman. From 1971 to 1981 he was CEO of the Empain-Schneider Group. The offspring of a family who achieved nobility and wealth under Édouard Louis Joseph Empain (1852–1929) achieved particular fame as a victim of kidnapping .

Empain merged the family businesses with those of the French Schneider clan. After Charles Schneider died in 1960 at the age of 62 as a result of a fall from his yacht in Saint-Tropez , his company and assets fell to his wife, the former actress Liliane Constantini , a granddaughter of the French socialist Jules Guesde , who by roles in films like La chèvre aux pieds d'or ("The goat with the golden feet") touched a broad audience with her charm. As the heiress, however, she found herself overwhelmed with the management of the company, and so in 1963 substantial shares in Empain were sold.

Empain was thus head of the Schneider-Empain conglomerate , which employed 120,000 people in around 150 companies. The group included the Creusot-Loire steelworks , which dates back to the 18th century , Framatome , monopoly for pressurized water reactors in the then flourishing French nuclear industry, Jeumont-Schneider , an electromechanical group and SPIE , an industrial service provider with a focus on electrical engineering services.

The abduction

Baron Empain was kidnapped by a gang of gangsters on January 23, 1978 in front of his domicile on Avenue Foch in the 16th arrondissement of Paris . His kidnappers demanded a ransom of 80 million francs (later reduced to 40 million francs). To back up their request, they cut off Empain's little finger on her left hand and sent it to the family. Empain was forced to lie in an orange camping tent in the basement of a demolished house in Savigny-sur-Orge for almost the entire duration of the kidnapping . After part of the gang was arrested, Empain was released on March 28, 1978 near a metro station in the south of Paris.

The trial of the surviving kidnappers, one of whom was shot in detention due to resistance, took place in December 1982. They received sentences of between 15 and 20 years.

Empain reported that after his release, only his Labrador was happy to see him return. His family and business partners had already written him off and looked forward to their inheritance with great joy. The relationship between them and Empain deteriorated so much that Empain broke all bridges and began a new life.

After the kidnapping

In 1981 Empain sold its shares in the Empain Schneider Group. In 2003, he was charged with an alleged fraudulent bankruptcy of the SNC Empain-Graham company in 1998, but was acquitted.

literature

  • La vie en jeu , Édouard-Jean Empain, Jean-Claude Lattès (1985)

filming

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jean-Alphonse Richard: Édouard-Jean Empain, le baron au doigt coupé, est décédé. In: rtl.fr. June 21, 2018, accessed June 22, 2018 (French).
  2. ^ Liliane Constantini in the Internet Movie Database
  3. ↑ a b Faites entrer l'accusé , part 4, "L'enlèvement du Baron Empain", Christophe Hondelatte, Ed. Michel Laffon, 04/2006, ISBN 2-7499-0444-7
  4. ↑ Le baron Empain relaxé in une affaire de banqueroute . Le Nouvel Observateur , March 13, 2007, archived from the original on March 13, 2007 ; accessed on June 18, 2019 (French, original website no longer available).
personal data
SURNAME Empain, Édouard-Jean
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian entrepreneur and businessman
DATE OF BIRTH October 7, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Budapest
DATE OF DEATH June 21, 2018
Place of death Pontoise