Francis Mer (25 May 1939 – 1 November 2023) was a French businessman, industrialist and politician. An alumnus of the

École polytechnique (, ; also known as Polytechnique or l'X ) is a ''grande école'' located in Palaiseau, France. It specializes in science and engineering and is a founding member of the Polytechnic Institute of Paris. The school was founded in 1794 by mat ...

(class of 1959), and of the École des Mines de Paris, he was a member of the

Corps des mines The () is the foremost technical Grand Corps of the French State (). It is composed of the state industrial engineers. The Corps is attached to the French Ministry of Economy and Finance. Its purpose is to entice French students in mathematic ...

. Mer was hired in 1970 by the

Saint-Gobain Compagnie de Saint-Gobain S.A. () is a French multinational corporation, founded in 1665 in Paris as the Manufacture royale de glaces de miroirs, and today headquartered on the outskirts of Paris, at La Défense and in Courbevoie. Originally a ...

group. In 1982, he became chairman of the board of Pont-à-Mousson SA. In the 1980s, he joined the

Saint-Simon Foundation The Saint-Simon Foundation () was a French think tank that was created in 1982 and brought together public intellectuals, Journalist, journalists, senior civil servants, business leaders, trade unionists, and academics. It terminated its activity in ...

think-tank. Following the 1986 legislative elections and the nomination of the conservative

Jacques Chirac Jacques René Chirac (, ; ; 29 November 193226 September 2019) was a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. He was previously Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and 1986 to 1988, as well as Mayor of Pari ...

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

, he was nominated as president of the new

Usinor Usinor was a French steel making group formed in 1948. The group was merged with Sacilor in 1986, becoming Usinor-Sacilor and was privatised in 1995, and renamed Usinor in 1997. In 2001 it merged with Arbed (Luxembourg) and Aceralia (Spain) to ...

group. He was reelected to his position in 1995, upon the group's privatization, and renamed the group

Arcelor Arcelor S.A. was the world's largest steel producer in terms of turnover and the second largest in terms of steel output, with a turnover of €30.2 billion and shipments of 45 million metric tons of steel in 2004. The company was created in 2002 ...

in 2002. From 2002 to 2004, he was Minister of Finances in

Jean-Pierre Raffarin Jean-Pierre Raffarin (; born 3 August 1948) is a French politician who served as Prime Minister of France from 6 May 2002 to 31 May 2005 under President Jacques Chirac. He resigned after France's rejection of the referendum on the European Un ...

's conservative government. From 2005, he sat on the board of directors of

Vale Inco Vale Canada Limited (formerly Vale Inco, CVRD Inco and Inco Limited; for corporate branding purposes simply known as "Vale" and pronounced in English) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Brazilian mining company Vale. Vale's nickel mining and ...

, which benefited from an important tax rebate to exploit a nickel mine in New Caledonia while he was finance minister. In June 2009, he became chairman of the board of

Safran Safran S.A. () is a French Multinational corporation, multinational aerospace, defence industry, defence and computer security, security corporation headquartered in Paris. It designs, develops and manufactures both commercial and military airc ...

. In April 2011, due to the change of structure of

, Jean-Paul Herteman became

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

and Francis Mer became Vice Chairman. Francis Mer died on 1 November 2023, at the age of 84.

Notes

1939 births 2023 deaths French chief executives École Polytechnique alumni Mines Paris - PSL alumni Corps des mines Politicians of the French Fifth Republic Finance ministers of France Safran Group people People from Pau, Pyrénées-Atlantiques {{France-politician-stub