Pierre Dreyfus
 Pierre Dreyfus    ( civil servant, business executive) | |
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| Born | 18 November 1907 Paris |
| Died | 25 December 1994 (Age 87) Paris |
| Nationality | French |
| Ethnicity | Jewish |
| Alma mater | • lycée Janson-de-Sailly • Sorbonne |
| Siblings | Dina Dreyfus |
| Party | French Section of the Workers' International |
French executive who attended Bilderberg/1962 as head of carmaker Renault.
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Pierre Dreyfus was a high French civil servant who in 1955 became a wealthy businessman. Between 1947 and 1955, he occupied senior administrative positions in the Ministry of Industry and Commerce. In February 1955 he was appointed CEO of Renault. He succeeded in creating a model nationalised car company on the twin bastions of export-led growth and an enlightened industrial relations policy[1], retaining the position until his retirement from the company in 1975. He attended the 1962 Bilderberg meeting.
Background
The son of a banker and businessman, Dreyfus grew up in an educated environment and already in his childhood he met such personalities as Robert Marjolin and Claude Lévi-Strauss, who later became the first husband of his sister Dina Dreyfus. He entered the business world at the age of 18, after which he studied law. After graduation, in 1935 he became a technical adviser at the Ministry of Industry. During the German occupation, Dreyfus was part of the Résistance.
From an early age, Dreyfus sympathized with socialist ideas and joined the SFIO, a forerunner of the Socialist Party. However, he left them again in the dispute over the Spanish Civil War in 1936.
Career
In1936 he was recruited by the Minister of Finance, Vincent Auriol (subsequently France's president in 1947-54) to join the Ministry of Industry and Commerce in the newly elected centre leftist Popular Front government.
After the war Dreyfus became involved with planning industrial strategy under Jean Monnet and, in 1947, was made chief aide to the Minister of Industry, Robert Lacoste. In 1948 Lacoste appointed Dreyfus to the board of Rgie Renault, the carmaker nationalised by the French government in 1945, and also vice-president from 1948 to 1955.[2][1]
After a car accident of the CEO Pierre Lefaucheux, Dreyfus became his successor from 1955 until his retirement in 1975. Under his leadership, Renault introduced a number of new production methods and led the company to commercial success. At the same time, in dialogue with the trade unions, he ensured that Renault, as a formerly nationalized company, assumed its social responsibility. As he wrote in his book La Liberté de réussir ("The freedom to succeed"), Renault must "enrich the nation" and "improve the conditions of the workers", and that the purpose of a flourishing economy is to improve the destinies of people.[3] In the early 1960s an over-reliance on American sales and a transatlantic recesssion pushed the firm into the red.[1]
From 1968 on, however, relations between the management and the workers deteriorated increasingly in view of the political environment. In 1972, Dreyfus had to testify as a witness in the trial for the murder of the Maoist Pierre Overney, who had been shot by an employee of the Renault security service.
In 1975 Dreyfus was replaced by Bernard Vernier-Palliez.
After the election of François Mitterrand as president in 1981, Dreyfus returned to politics and became Minister of Industry in the government of Pierre Mauroy, but gave up exhausted in June 1982. After that, he was an adviser to the president and a member of the supervisory board of the pharmaceutical company Roussel-UCLAF for several years before retiring from public life.
He was accepted into the Legion of Honor as a grand officer.
Pierre Dreyfus was not related to Alfred Dreyfus, famous because of the 'Dreyfus Affair'.[4]
Event Participated in
| Event | Start | End | Location(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bilderberg/1962 | 18 May 1962 | 20 May 1962 | Sweden Saltsjöbaden | The 11th Bilderberg meeting and the first one in Sweden. |
References
- ↑ Jump up to: a b c https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-pierre-dreyfus-1609774.html
- ↑ https://www.universalis.fr/encyclopedie/pierre-dreyfus/
- ↑ https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-12-28-mn-13683-story.html
- ↑ "Thirty Remarkable years of Renault". Autoworld. Vol. 45. April 1974. p. 11.
