An industrialist in the Pantheon? Yes, but not just any

It is an idea supported by his grandson and part of the employers, led by the president of Medef. Bringing into the Pantheon, an entrepreneur and in this case an industrialist, André Citroën. Under the dome of “great men”, we find in fact soldiers, politicians, scientists, artists, resistance fighters, religious people... but no business leaders. The only exception, a Swiss banker from the 18th century, Jean-Frédéric Perregaux, fell into oblivion.

On the other hand, André Citroën, a brilliant engineer, captain of industry, social boss, that would look bad, believes the employers who aspire to recognition of the role of leaders in the success of the country. Why not ? Because if the success of a company is based on the involvement of all its stakeholders, employees in the lead, an entrepreneur must initially have taken the risk of confronting his ideas with reality. On the other hand, you have to choose your “client” carefully. In the 20th century, in terms of notable industrialists, it's complicated: the political commitment of Marcel Dassault might not please everyone, Eugène Schueller, the founder of L'Oréal, financed the far-right revolutionary group La Cagoule, Louis Renault had some problems at the Liberation with factories put at the service of the occupier, Marcel Bich, creator of BIC, is a baron and half-Italian...

André Citroën is an innovative industrialist, a brilliant marketer, a boss attentive to working conditions, he democratized the car, becoming, at the end of the 1920s, the second largest manufacturer in the world behind Ford. But carried away by his ambition, he became entangled in debt and sent his company to the ground in 1934. He was both a visionary and a magnificent loser. A failure which makes him human and which can create consensus in a country which does not much like big bosses.

Machine-translated from French