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
French politician and leader of large corporations, briefly at Rothschild & Cie Banque. WEF/Global Leaders for Tomorrow/1998. From 2019 European Commissioner implementing censorship.  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.

Widely acclaimed as a "turnaround whiz", Breton led several French companies, including France Télécom (2002–2005), where his leadership style created a suicide wave among employees.

In 2005 he entered politics 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, after wich he briefly was a "senior advisor" to Rothschild & Cie Banque.

From 2007 to 2008 he was a professor at Harvard Business School before joining group Atos from 2009 to 2019 as its CEO.

In 2019, he was appointed European Commissioner for Internal Market, where he implemented censorship:

“[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

Early life and education

Breton was born in 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).

Business career

Breton began his career in 1979 as a teacher of IT and Mathematics at the Lycée Français de New York as part of his military service through cooperation. In 1986 Breton became adviser to the French Ministry of Education and Research René Monory.

In 1993, the French government hired Breton to help turn around troubled national computer maker Groupe Bull.

In 1997, the French government named Breton chairman and CEO of Thomson Multimedia, a state-owned consumer-electronics company that was on the verge of collapse.

Widely acclaimed as a "turnaround whiz", Breton was named by French government as head of multinational telecommunications corporation France Télécom on 2 October 2002. At the time France Télécom, Europe’s second-largest phone company, was carrying one of the largest debt loads in the world. Its $76 billion debt burden meant that all of its cash was being eaten up by interest payments, with nothing left over to reduce the principals on its loans. His reorganization managed to increase revenue and reduce debt, but the plan was imposed unilaterally in the absence of consultation with trade unions and was accompanied by a suicide wave among employees (more than 60 between 2006 and 2009). Although the suicide wave happened after Breton had moved on, he laid the foundation of the toxic management practices pursued by his successor Didier Lombard and his colleagues.

Minister of Economy, Finance and Industry

During his two and a half years Minister of Economy, Finance and Industry (2005–2007), Breton centered his economic policy on the need to reform public finances, specifically to reduce debt. In July 2006, he set up a commission presided over by BNP Paribas CEO Michel Pébereau which was given the task of breaking the pattern of public debt.

Rothschild and further business career

After two years minister, he spent a brief period as a "senior advisor" to Rothschild & Cie Banque and professor at Harvard Business School, before in November 2008 becoming the executive chairman and CEO of private-owned Atos S.A. Breton had a prominent role in President Emmanuel Macron’s entourage during the US state visit in April 2018, indicating his privileged position in the French President’s inner circle.

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.

 

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.

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