Émilien Amaury
Encyclopedia
Émilien Amaury was a French publishing magnate whose company now organises the Tour de France
. He worked with Philippe Pétain
, head of the French government in the southern half of France during the second world war but used his position to find paper and other materials for the French Resistance
. His links with Jacques Goddet
, the organiser of the Tour de France, led to a publishing empire that included the daily sports paper, L'Équipe
. Amaury died after falling from his horse; his will led to six years of legal debate.
, a journalist and politician,Marc Sangnier
founded a newspaper, La Démocratie, which campaigned for equality for women, proportional representation at elections, and for pacifism. He was also one of the pioneers of the French youth-hostelling movement. going from there in 1930 to found the OPG, the Office de Publicité Générale, which handled advertising for several Christian-Democrat newspapers. In 1937 he became technical adviser to the Minister for the Colonies
, Marius Moutet.
, but he was captured when Germany invaded
the Ardennes
in 1940. He escaped soon afterwards and returned to Paris. The government collapsed with the invasion and a new state was declared, with its headquarters at Vichy
. Its leader, Philippe Pétain, put Amaury in charge of propaganda for the well-being of the family. Amaury, however, had been in contact with an early Resistant, Henri Honoré d'Estienne d'Orves
, and through him had helped start the Rue de Lille Group, a Parisian cell of the growing Resistance movement in which Amaury took the code names Jupiter and Champin. He used his government position to procure paper – which was rationed – for Resistance newspapers and to supply other material. The paper he procured made it possible to print 30,000 and sometimes 100,000 copies of news sheets such as Résistance, L'Humanité
and Témoignage Chrétien.
The Rue de Lille Group – named after a street in Paris – also printed the text of General Charles de Gaulle
's broadcast to France on the BBC
of 18 June 1940, and printed forged documents for Resistance members.De Gaulle had been promoted to acting general after leading tanks against the German invasion. He was then called to join the government, led by the Prime Minister of France
, Paul Reynaud
. Reynaud's wish to resist the German Occupation led him to send De Gaulle to London to meet Winston Churchill
. It was on the last of several visits to London that de Gaulle broadcast on the French service
of the BBC
. Few heard the broadcast and even fewer had heard of de Gaulle but his words, reminding France that it had lost a battle but that the war continued across the war and the French could be part of it, became a call to resistance. The speech was printed and circulated across France by Resistance movements and is today reproduced in many of the city's squares and on war memorials.
Among the newspapers closed had been the sports daily, L'Auto, which had founded the Tour de France in 1903. The editor, Jacques Goddet
, had refused to run the race when the Germans invited him to but his paper printed news favourable to the occupiers, many of its shares were held by Nazi sympathisers, and Goddet himself had been a supporter of Pétain. He was able to show that L'Auto's print works, through its head, Roger Roux, had clandestinely produced news sheets for the Resistance generally and for Amaury in particular. An inquiry absolved Goddet of collaboration and, through Amaury's interest, allowed Goddet to open another newspaper, L'Équipe
, and to run the Tour de France. Both the paper and the race later became part of Amaury's business network.
Amaury's first publication, however, building on the wreckage of the collaborationist press, was a weekly, Carrefour ("crossroads"), in August 1944. His links with the Ligue Féminine d'Action Catholique led to the foundation of Marie-France, which he later edited. He also created the Syndicat de la Presse Hebdomadaire Parisienne ("Parisian weekly press union", later known as the Syndicat Professionnel de la Presse Magazine et d'Opinion), and was elected its president for 33 successive years.
Amaury founded a daily paper, Le Parisien Libéré
on 22 August 1944, three days before liberation of the capital. The first headline was "The victory of Paris is in progress!"(La victoire de Paris est en marche!) The paper changed name to Le Parisien in 1986. The paper grew from the ashes of Le Petit Parisien, a paper founded in 1876 but which had been tainted by collaboration during the second world war. The government closed it, along with other newspapers, and licensed Le Parisien Libéré and L'Humanité to take over the paper's headquarters in the rue d'Enghien.
Production of the paper was interrupted from 7 March. Amaury refused the claims of his workers. The printers stopped work, helped by colleagues elsewhere in the CGT
trade union who gave a tenth of their salary to a strike fund. The printers took over two of the newspapers' plants and barricaded themselves behind rolls of newsprint
. After two weeks Amaury had the paper printed in Belgium. Printers hijacked two loads of papers being driven south and threw them into the fields. The rest of the delivery made it to Paris and the newspaper maintained some of its circulation after moving printing to a plant north of Paris staffed partly by printers from Le Parisien Libéré who belonged to a different union.
Protesters occupied the liner, SS France
and scaled the Notre Dame
in central Paris to scatter pamphlets and protested at the Tour de France, run by another part of Amaury's organisation.
The episode became more violent when a bomb killed the editor-in-chief of Agence France Presse at his apartment in Paris. An anonymous caller told a local radio station: "We have just blasted the home of Cabanes of Le Parisien Libéré." Bernard Cabanes was unconnected with the dispute; police believed the bomb was intended for the newspaper's editor, another journalist of the same name. Printers denied involvement. The dispute lasted 29 months.
), his position was confused by the actions of his elder brother, Maurice. Like Jacques, Maurice had inherited their father's share in the publishing business. Maurice was eased out when his flamboyant policies came close to ruining the company and his final act was to sell shares to a consortium of Germans close to the Nazi party. The major holding in the paper was also sold to the Germans by Albert Lejeune, on behalf of his boss Raymond Petenôtre, who had taken refuge in the USA. L'Auto therefore fell to some extent under German control and the column of general news that Goddet had included to widen the appeal of L'Auto appeal became a propaganda tool for the occupants. Goddet was forbidden to use the name L'Auto, judged to give an unfair advantage over rival sports papers. The new paper took the name L'Équipe instead. It applied successfully to organise the Tour de France.
L'Équipe's finances were never secure and in 1968 Amaury bought an interest but maintained Goddet as editor. Amaury's condition was that his own cycling reporter, Félix Lévitan
, should share organisation of the Tour. Lévitan slowly took over from Goddet, especially in arrangements for sponsorship and finance. He and Goddet were business partners rather than friends, and Lévitan came into his own when Amaury bought L'Équipe and the Tour. Amaury's death meant ownership passed, after a legal battle, to his son, Philippe
. Friction over inheritance (see below) meant Philippe was anxious to change some of the arrangements he had taken over and Lévitan fell out of favour. On 17 March 1987 Levitan found the locks of his office changed and a court official waiting to search and clear it amid claims, never proven, of financial mismanagement. Goddet became race director-at-large before leaving the following year.
The Tour de France is still run by Amaury Sport Organisation
, part of the general Amaury group, which also organises the Dakar car rally
and the Paris marathon.
. The left-wing newspaper Libération
reflected the manner in which many of its readers perceived him by the headline Amaury falls from his horse: the horse is safe His death led to a six-year legal battle over inheritance. Amaury left the bulk of his estate to his daughter, Françine. French law demands that offspring inherit equally and Amaury's son, Philippe, insisted on his share. The legal case was handled by Jacques Trémollet de Villers
and six years later it settled amicably, Philippe taking the dailies and his sister magazines such as Marie-France and Point de Vue.
Émilien Amaury is buried in the St-Pierre cemetery at Chantilly.
Tour de France
The Tour de France is an annual bicycle race held in France and nearby countries. First staged in 1903, the race covers more than and lasts three weeks. As the best known and most prestigious of cycling's three "Grand Tours", the Tour de France attracts riders and teams from around the world. The...
. He worked with Philippe Pétain
Philippe Pétain
Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain , generally known as Philippe Pétain or Marshal Pétain , was a French general who reached the distinction of Marshal of France, and was later Chief of State of Vichy France , from 1940 to 1944...
, head of the French government in the southern half of France during the second world war but used his position to find paper and other materials for the French Resistance
French Resistance
The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...
. His links with Jacques Goddet
Jacques Goddet
Jacques Goddet was a French sports journalist and director of the Tour de France from 1936 to 1986....
, the organiser of the Tour de France, led to a publishing empire that included the daily sports paper, L'Équipe
L'Équipe
L'Équipe is a French nationwide daily newspaper devoted to sports, owned by Éditions Philippe Amaury. The paper is noted for coverage of football , rugby, motorsports and cycling...
. Amaury died after falling from his horse; his will led to six years of legal debate.
Background
Emilien Amaury was born in modest circumstances in the town of Étampes. He left both his school and his family at 12. (Other sources say he left at 10) He began work as a bicycle delivery boy, worked in a bar, then joined the army in compulsory military service. On leaving the army he became at 19 secretary to Marc SangnierMarc Sangnier
Marc Sangnier was a French Roman Catholic thinker and politician, who in 1894 founded le Sillon , a liberal Catholic movement. He aimed to bring Catholicism into a greater conformity with French Republican ideals and to provide an alternative to anticlerical labour movements...
, a journalist and politician,Marc Sangnier
Marc Sangnier
Marc Sangnier was a French Roman Catholic thinker and politician, who in 1894 founded le Sillon , a liberal Catholic movement. He aimed to bring Catholicism into a greater conformity with French Republican ideals and to provide an alternative to anticlerical labour movements...
founded a newspaper, La Démocratie, which campaigned for equality for women, proportional representation at elections, and for pacifism. He was also one of the pioneers of the French youth-hostelling movement. going from there in 1930 to found the OPG, the Office de Publicité Générale, which handled advertising for several Christian-Democrat newspapers. In 1937 he became technical adviser to the Minister for the Colonies
Minister of Overseas France
The Minister of Overseas France is a cabinet member in the Government of France responsible for overseeing French overseas departments and territories .The position is currently held by Brice Hortefeux, who is also the Minister of the Interior...
, Marius Moutet.
War and Resistance
France declared war against Germany in 1939. Amaury was conscripted into the cavalry in 1938 and was awarded the Croix de GuerreCroix de guerre
The Croix de guerre is a military decoration of France. It was first created in 1915 and consists of a square-cross medal on two crossed swords, hanging from a ribbon with various degree pins. The decoration was awarded during World War I, again in World War II, and in other conflicts...
, but he was captured when Germany invaded
Battle of France
In the Second World War, the Battle of France was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries, beginning on 10 May 1940, which ended the Phoney War. The battle consisted of two main operations. In the first, Fall Gelb , German armoured units pushed through the Ardennes, to cut off and...
the Ardennes
Ardennes
The Ardennes is a region of extensive forests, rolling hills and ridges formed within the Givetian Ardennes mountain range, primarily in Belgium and Luxembourg, but stretching into France , and geologically into the Eifel...
in 1940. He escaped soon afterwards and returned to Paris. The government collapsed with the invasion and a new state was declared, with its headquarters at Vichy
Vichy
Vichy is a commune in the department of Allier in Auvergne in central France. It belongs to the historic province of Bourbonnais.It is known as a spa and resort town and was the de facto capital of Vichy France during the World War II Nazi German occupation from 1940 to 1944.The town's inhabitants...
. Its leader, Philippe Pétain, put Amaury in charge of propaganda for the well-being of the family. Amaury, however, had been in contact with an early Resistant, Henri Honoré d'Estienne d'Orves
Henri Honoré d'Estienne d'Orves
Henri Honoré d'Estienne d'Orves was a French Navy officer, reputed "first martyr of Free France" and one of the major heroes of the French Resistance.-Early life:...
, and through him had helped start the Rue de Lille Group, a Parisian cell of the growing Resistance movement in which Amaury took the code names Jupiter and Champin. He used his government position to procure paper – which was rationed – for Resistance newspapers and to supply other material. The paper he procured made it possible to print 30,000 and sometimes 100,000 copies of news sheets such as Résistance, L'Humanité
L'Humanité
L'Humanité , formerly the daily newspaper linked to the French Communist Party , was founded in 1904 by Jean Jaurès, a leader of the French Section of the Workers' International...
and Témoignage Chrétien.
The Rue de Lille Group – named after a street in Paris – also printed the text of General Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
's broadcast to France on the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
of 18 June 1940, and printed forged documents for Resistance members.De Gaulle had been promoted to acting general after leading tanks against the German invasion. He was then called to join the government, led by the Prime Minister of France
Prime Minister of France
The Prime Minister of France in the Fifth Republic is the head of government and of the Council of Ministers of France. The head of state is the President of the French Republic...
, Paul Reynaud
Paul Reynaud
Paul Reynaud was a French politician and lawyer prominent in the interwar period, noted for his stances on economic liberalism and militant opposition to Germany. He was the penultimate Prime Minister of the Third Republic and vice-president of the Democratic Republican Alliance center-right...
. Reynaud's wish to resist the German Occupation led him to send De Gaulle to London to meet Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
. It was on the last of several visits to London that de Gaulle broadcast on the French service
Appeal of June 18
The Appeal of 18 June was a famous speech by Charles de Gaulle, the leader of the Free French Forces, in 1940. The appeal is often considered to be the origin of the French Resistance to the German occupation during World War II. De Gaulle spoke to the French people from London after the fall of...
of the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
. Few heard the broadcast and even fewer had heard of de Gaulle but his words, reminding France that it had lost a battle but that the war continued across the war and the French could be part of it, became a call to resistance. The speech was printed and circulated across France by Resistance movements and is today reproduced in many of the city's squares and on war memorials.
Origins of press empire
Newspapers and magazines which had continued to publish during the Occupation were closed down and their possessions sequestrated by the State at the end of the war. The way was open to new entrepreneurs and to those whose reputations had survived the war years.Among the newspapers closed had been the sports daily, L'Auto, which had founded the Tour de France in 1903. The editor, Jacques Goddet
Jacques Goddet
Jacques Goddet was a French sports journalist and director of the Tour de France from 1936 to 1986....
, had refused to run the race when the Germans invited him to but his paper printed news favourable to the occupiers, many of its shares were held by Nazi sympathisers, and Goddet himself had been a supporter of Pétain. He was able to show that L'Auto's print works, through its head, Roger Roux, had clandestinely produced news sheets for the Resistance generally and for Amaury in particular. An inquiry absolved Goddet of collaboration and, through Amaury's interest, allowed Goddet to open another newspaper, L'Équipe
L'Équipe
L'Équipe is a French nationwide daily newspaper devoted to sports, owned by Éditions Philippe Amaury. The paper is noted for coverage of football , rugby, motorsports and cycling...
, and to run the Tour de France. Both the paper and the race later became part of Amaury's business network.
Amaury's first publication, however, building on the wreckage of the collaborationist press, was a weekly, Carrefour ("crossroads"), in August 1944. His links with the Ligue Féminine d'Action Catholique led to the foundation of Marie-France, which he later edited. He also created the Syndicat de la Presse Hebdomadaire Parisienne ("Parisian weekly press union", later known as the Syndicat Professionnel de la Presse Magazine et d'Opinion), and was elected its president for 33 successive years.
Amaury founded a daily paper, Le Parisien Libéré
Le Parisien
Le Parisien is a French daily newspaper covering both international and national news, and local news of Paris and its suburbs. It was established as Le Parisien libéré by Émilien Amaury in 1944, and the name was changed to the current one in 1986...
on 22 August 1944, three days before liberation of the capital. The first headline was "The victory of Paris is in progress!"(La victoire de Paris est en marche!) The paper changed name to Le Parisien in 1986. The paper grew from the ashes of Le Petit Parisien, a paper founded in 1876 but which had been tainted by collaboration during the second world war. The government closed it, along with other newspapers, and licensed Le Parisien Libéré and L'Humanité to take over the paper's headquarters in the rue d'Enghien.
Strike
Economic problems in the 1970s cost the popular press, including Le Parisien Libéré, much of its readership.The American magazine Time described Le Parisien-Libéré as a lowbrow daily. On 1 March 1975, Le Parisien Libérés management told workers' representatives of a plan to cut 300 jobs, including those of 200 printers, and to print fewer papers. On 4 March the company closed one of its print works, in the rue d'Enghien in Paris. The unions said they had been given no notice and it led to one of the longest strikes in French newspaper history and to the murder of an innocent man confused with the paper's editor.Production of the paper was interrupted from 7 March. Amaury refused the claims of his workers. The printers stopped work, helped by colleagues elsewhere in the CGT
Confédération générale du travail
The General Confederation of Labour is a national trade union center, the first of the five major French confederations of trade unions.It is the largest in terms of votes , and second largest in terms of membership numbers.Its membership decreased to 650,000 members in 1995-96 The General...
trade union who gave a tenth of their salary to a strike fund. The printers took over two of the newspapers' plants and barricaded themselves behind rolls of newsprint
Newsprint
Newsprint is a low-cost, non-archival paper most commonly used to print newspapers, and other publications and advertising material. It usually has an off-white cast and distinctive feel. It is designed for use in printing presses that employ a long web of paper rather than individual sheets of...
. After two weeks Amaury had the paper printed in Belgium. Printers hijacked two loads of papers being driven south and threw them into the fields. The rest of the delivery made it to Paris and the newspaper maintained some of its circulation after moving printing to a plant north of Paris staffed partly by printers from Le Parisien Libéré who belonged to a different union.
Protesters occupied the liner, SS France
SS France (1961)
SS France was a Compagnie Générale Transatlantique ocean liner, constructed by the Chantiers de l'Atlantique shipyard at Saint-Nazaire, France, and put into service in February 1962...
and scaled the Notre Dame
Notre Dame de Paris
Notre Dame de Paris , also known as Notre Dame Cathedral, is a Gothic, Roman Catholic cathedral on the eastern half of the Île de la Cité in the fourth arrondissement of Paris, France. It is the cathedral of the Catholic Archdiocese of Paris: that is, it is the church that contains the cathedra of...
in central Paris to scatter pamphlets and protested at the Tour de France, run by another part of Amaury's organisation.
The episode became more violent when a bomb killed the editor-in-chief of Agence France Presse at his apartment in Paris. An anonymous caller told a local radio station: "We have just blasted the home of Cabanes of Le Parisien Libéré." Bernard Cabanes was unconnected with the dispute; police believed the bomb was intended for the newspaper's editor, another journalist of the same name. Printers denied involvement. The dispute lasted 29 months.
Tour de France
The Tour de France cycle race began in 1903 to promote the newspaper, L'Auto. The paper was among those closed at Liberation, its property sequestrated by the state. Its editor, Jacques Goddet, had compiled a dossier to show how much his paper had contributed privately to the Resistance even if its public stance had favoured the Germans. Émilien Amaury was among his supporters.While Jacques Goddet could never be called a collaborator and insisted that he had done much to thwart the Germans, including refusing to organise the Tour despite the privileges they were offering (see Tour de France during the Second World WarTour de France during the Second World War
The Tour de France was not held during the Second World War because the organisers refused German requests. Although a 1940 Tour de France had been announced earlier, the outbreak of the war made it impossible for it to be held...
), his position was confused by the actions of his elder brother, Maurice. Like Jacques, Maurice had inherited their father's share in the publishing business. Maurice was eased out when his flamboyant policies came close to ruining the company and his final act was to sell shares to a consortium of Germans close to the Nazi party. The major holding in the paper was also sold to the Germans by Albert Lejeune, on behalf of his boss Raymond Petenôtre, who had taken refuge in the USA. L'Auto therefore fell to some extent under German control and the column of general news that Goddet had included to widen the appeal of L'Auto appeal became a propaganda tool for the occupants. Goddet was forbidden to use the name L'Auto, judged to give an unfair advantage over rival sports papers. The new paper took the name L'Équipe instead. It applied successfully to organise the Tour de France.
L'Équipe's finances were never secure and in 1968 Amaury bought an interest but maintained Goddet as editor. Amaury's condition was that his own cycling reporter, Félix Lévitan
Félix Lévitan
Félix Lévitan was the third organiser of the Tour de France, a role he shared for much of the time with Jacques Goddet...
, should share organisation of the Tour. Lévitan slowly took over from Goddet, especially in arrangements for sponsorship and finance. He and Goddet were business partners rather than friends, and Lévitan came into his own when Amaury bought L'Équipe and the Tour. Amaury's death meant ownership passed, after a legal battle, to his son, Philippe
Philippe Amaury
Philippe Amaury was a French publishing tycoon and entrepreneur who dominated the French media world. Amaury was the son of the publisher Émilien Amaury....
. Friction over inheritance (see below) meant Philippe was anxious to change some of the arrangements he had taken over and Lévitan fell out of favour. On 17 March 1987 Levitan found the locks of his office changed and a court official waiting to search and clear it amid claims, never proven, of financial mismanagement. Goddet became race director-at-large before leaving the following year.
The Tour de France is still run by Amaury Sport Organisation
Amaury Sport Organisation
The Amaury Sport Organisation is part of the French media group, EPA . It organises sporting events including the Tour de France and Paris–Nice professional cycle road races, and the Dakar Rally...
, part of the general Amaury group, which also organises the Dakar car rally
Dakar Rally
The Dakar Rally is an annual rally raid type of off-road automobile race, organised by the Amaury Sport Organisation...
and the Paris marathon.
Death
Amaury died after falling from his horse in the forest near Chantilly, OiseChantilly, Oise
Chantilly is a small city in northern France. It is designated municipally as a commune in the department of Oise.It is in the metropolitan area of Paris 38.4 km...
. The left-wing newspaper Libération
Libération
Libération is a French daily newspaper founded in Paris by Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July in 1973 in the wake of the protest movements of May 1968. Originally a leftist newspaper, it has undergone a number of shifts during the 1980s and 1990s...
reflected the manner in which many of its readers perceived him by the headline Amaury falls from his horse: the horse is safe His death led to a six-year legal battle over inheritance. Amaury left the bulk of his estate to his daughter, Françine. French law demands that offspring inherit equally and Amaury's son, Philippe, insisted on his share. The legal case was handled by Jacques Trémollet de Villers
Jacques Trémollet de Villers
Jacques Trémolet de Villers is a French writer, lawyer, president of the Catholic fundamentalist group La Cité Catholique since the 1980s and monarchist activist in the Restauration nationale movement....
and six years later it settled amicably, Philippe taking the dailies and his sister magazines such as Marie-France and Point de Vue.
Émilien Amaury is buried in the St-Pierre cemetery at Chantilly.