Yvon Gattaz, former president of the National Council of French Employers (CNPF), from 1981 to 1986, an employers' organization from which Medef emerged, chaired by his son Pierre from 2013 to July 2018, died on the night of Wednesday 11 to Thursday 12 December, at the age of 99, his family announced to Agence France-Presse. Familiar with metaphors, tireless inventor of words and acronyms – which he himself called “gattazisms, gattazeries and gattazinades” –, this first business creator to enter the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences nicknamed death « EDF »as “lights out”.
Until the end, the man who prided himself on moving further and further away from a retreat he had never taken, displayed limitless energy. “Lifetime” president of the Youth and Business Association, which he created in 1986, he was, since 1995, founding president of the Association of Medium-Sized Heritage Enterprises (ASMEP, which became the Movement of Intermediate-Size Enterprises, METI, in 2015). It was for these titles that François Hollande decorated him, on April 2, 2013, with the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor.
His motto: “quickly and well”
Son and grandson of Catholic teachers, Yvon Gattaz was born in Bourgoin-Jallieu (Isère) on June 17, 1925. Best baccalaureate in his department, he managed to take advanced math and special math courses at high school in a single year. du Parc, in Lyon. He is already torn by the idea of starting his own business. Graduating from the Ecole Centrale, where he had become a student delegate, he joined the Aciéries du Nord as an engineer in 1948, before joining Citroën in 1950, as head of metallurgical purchasing. At 25, he is on the right track. But the man is in a hurry – his motto is “quickly and well”.
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With his brother Lucien, he developed multiple business creation projects. Together, they designed coaxial antenna lowering plugs for television. Their model is approved. And, in 1952, in a 110 square meter workshop at the back of a courtyard on rue Oberkampf, in 11e district of Paris, they founded the Radiall company. They have no money – their father became a painter – and they borrow from friends. Building on its dazzling success, the company converted to connectors for radars and telecommunications and set up in Voiron (Isère). Yvon Gattaz will be CEO until 1993 and then remain chairman of the supervisory board.
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