Thierry Breton

Thierry Breton   (politician)
Born	15 January 1955 Paris, France
Nationality	French, Senegalese
Alma mater	École alsacienne, Lycée Louis-le-Grand, Supélec, Institute of Advanced Studies in National Defence
Member of	European Round Table of Industrialists, Franco-British Colloque, Le Siècle, WEF/Global Leaders for Tomorrow/1998
European Commissioner/Internal Market  In office 1 December 2019 - Present  France/Minister/Economy Finance and Industry In office 25 February 2005 - 18 May 2007

Thierry Breton is a French business executive, politician, writer and Commissioner for Internal Market of the European Union.

He was selected a Global Leader for Tomorrow in 1998 by the World Economic Forum.

Breton was vice-chairman and CEO of Groupe Bull (1996–1997), chairman and CEO of Thomson-RCA (1997–2002) and chairman and CEO of France Télécom (2002–2005). In 2005 he entered politics serving as Minister of Economy, Finance and Industry (2005–2007) in the governments of Prime Ministers Jean-Pierre Raffarin and Dominique de Villepin, during the presidency of Jacques Chirac. From 2007 to 2008 he was a professor at Harvard Business School before joining group Atos from 2009 to 2019 as its CEO.

Early life and education

Breton was born in the 14th arrondissement of Paris. His father was a civil servant in the agency responsible for developing nuclear energy. He completed his middle and high school education at the École alsacienne in Paris and University-preparatory school classes for the Grandes écoles at Lycée Louis-le-Grand.

Breton received a master's degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from École Supérieure d'Électricité (Supélec, now CentraleSupélec) in 1979 and later graduated from the Institute of Advanced Studies in National Defence (IHEDN).

Digital Services Act

As Commissioner for Internal Market, Breton is responsible for the implementation of the EU Digital Services Act. The Act gives governments more power to enforce rules governing how tech companies moderate content and to decide when they must take down illegal content. The DSA specifically will also force companies to moderate content in the languages they operate in.

“[Elon Musk] is in the process of reducing a certain number of moderators, but he will have to increase them in Europe...He will have to open his algorithms. We will have control, we will have access, people will no longer be able to say rubbish.”
Thierry Breton (November 18, 2022) 
EU Commissioner for Internal Market

 

Events Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
Munich Security Conference/2020	14 February 2020	16 February 2020	Germany Munich Bavaria	The 56th Munich Security Conference, in 2020, "welcomed an unprecedented number of high-ranking international decision-makers."
Munich Security Conference/2022	18 February 2022	20 February 2022	Germany Munich Bavaria	Slightly less than 1/3 of the 664 of the participants have pages here
WEF/Annual Meeting/2007	24 January 2007	28 January 2007	Switzerland	Only the 449 public figures listed of ~2200 participants
WEF/Annual Meeting/2020	21 January 2020	24 January 2020	World Economic Forum Switzerland	This mega-summit of the world's ruling class and their political and media appendages happens every year, but 2020 was special, as the continuous corporate media coverage of COVID-19 started more or less from one day to the next on 20/21 January 2020, coinciding with the start of the meeting.

Many thanks to our Patrons who cover ~2/3 of our hosting bill. Please join them if you can.