Lretired? What a funny idea! Yvon Gattaz even hated the term “retired”, preferring, he who so loved good words – his “gattazisms” – that of “hopers” for “all those who live in hope instead of sinking into regrets of the past or the saddened contemplation of their infirmities.” Boss of the CNPF (National Council of French Employers, ancestor of Medef), at the start of the Mitterrand era (1981-1986), the stubborn and energetic business leader died on the night of Wednesday to Thursday December 12. He was 99 years old.
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Yvon Gattaz spent a large part of his life investing in the life of the city. Until his last breath, he never stopped working to defend the company and its entrepreneurs. In 2020, he added to the long list of his works (around ten books and several associations), the creation of the “Yvon Gattaz – Start is good, Up is better” prize.
However, nothing predestined this son of teachers, born in 1925 in Bourgoin-Jallieu (Isère), to become a business manager. A Central student, he first chose to take a marked path by landing, after studying at the École centrale de Paris, a position as an engineer at Aciéries du Nord, then at Citroën. Before rushing into what was considered in the 1950s, especially for a graduate, as a sidetrack: the creation of a business.
At the bottom of a courtyard on rue Oberkampf, in Paris, in 1952 he launched an electronic components company with his brother Lucien. They did not look far for the name: they adopted that of a company previously established in the same place, Radiall. Are the banks reluctant to follow them? Never mind ! They borrow the initial investment from a friend. Their motto? “Quick and well. » Seventy years later, the small company has become a successful mid-sized company managed by his son, Pierre.
In battle against François Mitterrand
But very quickly, Yvon Gattaz saw further than his business. In 1967, he created the Group of commercial and industrial companies in Rosny-sous-Bois (Seine-Saint-Denis), where Radiall's head office is located, then the Movement of human-sized industrial and commercial companies (Ethic) in 1976. At the same time, he joined the executive council of the dusty CNPF, then chaired by François Ceyrac.
The storm takes place five years later. Dumbfounded, the employers saw their worst nightmare come true on May 10, 1981, with the election of François Mitterrand as President of the Republic. Flanked by his program mixing pell-mell nationalizations, reduction of working hours and retirement at 60, the socialist provokes an uproar within the CNPF: quickly, a successor to Ceyrac must be found, capable of leading the fight.
It will be Yvon Gattaz, elected after a clash with the other Yvon, Chotard. The new boss arrives at his office, avenue Pierre-Ier-de-Serbie, in Paris, every morning at 7 a.m.: in the industry, we get up early. In 1982, he organized the general meeting of companies in Villepinte to galvanize the troops. All the elements are there for a clash between the left in power and traditional employers.
And yet… Between Yvon Gattaz – elected a few months later at the head of the CNPF – and François Mitterrand, a relationship of trust is forged. At the Élysée, the two men met during numerous tête-à-têtes until 1984. The president was intrigued by the career of this provincial self-made man. The boss of the CNPF claims to be “transpolitical” and his mission is to teach economics lessons to Mitterrand…
During these five years, the CNPF engaged in a battle for the 39-hour week, on the tax on large fortunes, but also on the increase in social security contributions in companies. In 1982, Yvon Gattaz met François Mitterand no less than seven times. The result undoubtedly did not live up to expectations. But Gattaz will still obtain a freezing of charges and the end of the administrative authorization for dismissal.
His son Pierre Gattaz takes over
“The sense of initiative, audacity, the ability to take risks, sometimes to fall, to get up and unite energies”: it is 2013, and Yvon Gattaz is making his return to rue du Faubourg-Saint- Honored. He has not been at the head of the CNPF since 1986. The employers' organization has also changed its name, and it is his son, Pierre, who is now its boss. No, if Yvon Gattaz is here today, it is to be decorated with the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor. From the hand of a new socialist president… François Hollande. A great moment for Yvon Gattaz, so sensitive to the honors, the author of eleven books who is also a member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences.
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Since he left Medef and handed over the reins of the family business to his son, he has not remained idle. This hyperactive person continued his crusade for business creation and employment, particularly for young people. In 1986, he founded Youth and Business, an association which prepares young people to enter the professional world. In 1995, it was the turn of the Association of Medium-Sized Employers (Asmep), which in 2015 became the Meti (Movement of Intermediate-Sized Enterprises).
At the end of the 1990s, he fought against the reintegration of the work tool into the calculation of the ISF (wealth tax). He fights all his battles head-on, those of employment, entrepreneurship, training of young people, medium-sized businesses, through books, lobbying and media interventions. In short, Gattaz became an “overworked inactive person”, as he himself said. Until the end. French employers are today losing one of their figures.
