Ernest Mercier

Ernest Mercier (* 1878 in Constantine (Algeria) , † 1955 ) was a French industrialist. He was CEO of Compagnie Française de Pétrole (CFP), Total's predecessor company .

Life

After his birth as the third of five children of the mayor of Constantine Ernest Mercier Senior in what was then the French colony of Algeria , Mercier first grew up there. There he attended the École Polytechnique. He then decided to pursue a career in the French French Navy . His job there was to modernize the electrical system of the port of Toulon . From 1905 to 1908 he then studied at a university for electronics. During this time he married Madeleine Tassin .

During the First World War he was wounded in combat. He therefore returned to Paris and worked there as a liaison for Louis Loucheur , a high official of the then Minister of War Georges Clemenceau , to the generals Ferdinand Foch and Philippe Pétain . After the war Loucheur was responsible for the control of the German factories.

In 1919 was instrumental in founding the Union d'électricité. During this time he was one of the key figures in the energy industry in and around Paris. He was involved in the construction of several power plants. In 1923 he was commissioned by Raymond Poincaré to restructure the French oil industry. He should build a large state oil company. The CFP was founded in 1924.

In December 1925 he founded the political movement Redressement Français under the auspices of Foch . The goal of this movement was to adopt the Henry Ford model of industry and modernize political institutions. After several setbacks, he gave up the movement in 1935. After Loucheur's death he took over his place in the French Pan-European Committee.

During the Second World War , Mercier was forced to leave the CFP. After his divorce, Marguerite Dreyfus married in 1927, a niece of Alfred Dreyfus . This led to anti-Semitic attacks against him. He was only able to escape his deportation by accident. He then participated in the same resistance movement as Auguste Perret and André Siegfried .

literature

• Richard F. Kuisel: Ernest Mercier: French Technocrat . University of California Press, 1967, ISBN 0-520-00679-8 (English, 196 pages).