Arriving at the CDC at the end of 2017, this economic technician's achievements include the creation of the Banque des Territoires, the catastrophic recovery of the ORPEA group (today Emeis) splashed in 2022 by a scandal of mistreatment in its retirement homes. He is also attributed a central role in the merger between CNP Assurances and La Banque Postale.
Managing these files did not prevent him from discussing politics, going beyond the reserve expected of a boss of “the Fund”. “How do we manage a financial institution in the world of Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, to cite three great progressive and enlightened democrats?”, he asked himself at the beginning of the month, during a meeting organized by the Europe-finances-regulations association (AEFR). “I think we have to look at things with confidence and above all by being extremely active,” he replied.
Reappointed as head of the Caisse des Dépôts at the start of 2023, he has no reason to be ashamed of the financial results of recent years: this financial arm of the State made a net profit of €3.9 billion last year. euros (3.6 billion francs).
Political awakening on the left…
A graduate of HEC in 1981, now 66 years old, Éric Lombard began his career within the Paribas bank, before joining the Mitterrandie in 1989 with Michel Sapin in particular, then returning to Paribas the day after the setback of the left in the legislative elections of 1993. He held several positions there, including that of head of mergers and acquisitions in banking and insurance.
Eric Lombard then managed insurance for the in-house subsidiary of BNP Paribas, then moved to the insurer Generali France in 2013. He was pushed out in 2017 by the new general director of the Italian group Philippe Donnet. In the process, and at the end of a series of several weeks, he finally obtained the position at the head of the CDC at the end of 2017, replacing Pierre-René Lemas, dismissed by Emmanuel Macron after reaching the prefectural retirement age.
Eric Lombard had opportunely offered himself the position of general director of the Caisse des Dépôts “if the position were to be vacant”, less than two weeks after the election of Emmanuel Macron in 2017. Questioned by AFP in 2022, the boss of La Poste Philippe Wahl lent him great technical skills and undeniable interpersonal skills.
…Before entering macronie
Éric Lombard, already expected to attend Bercy in May 2022, has already said he is “in phase with Emmanuel Macron’s itinerary and project”. However, he does not hesitate to throw a few arrows at him, in particular against pension reform, the management of the State Participation Agency and the Public Treasury.
Two figures marked him in his youth, he explains in his book “At the heart of useful finance”, published in early 2022: his grandfather, a textile industrialist based in Troyes and art collector, and the socialist Michel Rocard, minister during the first mandate of François Mitterrand and Prime Minister from 1988 to 1991.
“We don’t feel him internally as a man of the left,” observes Salomé Vaillant, general secretary of the Unsa union. “For everything that is social, he is not really there,” she lamented, contacted Monday by AFP.
If the profile and experience of a music lover with a passion for sailing predestined him to occupy a crucial position, the challenge that awaits him seems almost inhuman, as his success and the life expectancy of the new government seem limited.
