Édouard-Jean Empain

Édouard-Jean, 3rd Baron Empain (7 October 1937 – 21 June 2018) was a French-Belgian industrialist, best known by the general public for his kidnapping in 1978.

Between 1969 and 1981, Baron Empain was CEO of the Schneider group (Schneider-Empain).

Biographical details The Baron was the son of Jean, 2nd Baron Empain, and the grandson of Édouard Louis Joseph, 1st Baron Empain. He married the Italian Silvana Betuzzi in 1957 by whom he had two daughters and a son: they were divorced shortly after Empain's kidnapping. He lived in the suburbs of Paris with his second wife Jacqueline (née Ragonaux), a former model, whom he married in 1990.

His abduction left a deep impression on him. He claims he has never been the same since. The newspapers dissected his private life during his confinement, "revealing his taste for gambling and the existence of his bachelor pad. A whiff of scandal that wounded the Baron, so discreet until then, even more fiercely than his two months in captivity".

Career before the kidnapping In 1978, Édouard-Jean Empain was a Belgian nobleman living in Paris. A wealthy heir at the age of forty-one, he had been chairman and CEO of the Empain-Schneider group (later Schneider Electric) since 1971. He was one of France's leading businessmen, with a group of almost three hundred companies, one hundred and fifty thousand employees and sales of twenty-two billion francs. The Empain-Schneider group included companies such as Framatome (nuclear boilers), Creusot-Loire (metallurgy), Jeumont-Schneider, Cerci, Citra and Spie Batignolles (construction).

Kidnapping

Capture on Avenue Foch

On Monday, January 23, 1978, at approximately 10:30am, Édouard-Jean, 3rd Baron Empain, was picked up as usual from his home at 33 Avenue Foch, a prestigious address in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, a stone's throw from the Arc de Triomphe.

The Baron's chauffeured car, a Peugeot 604, was intercepted at a junction some 50 metres after it had left his home. A moped slid across the road, faking an accident in order to bring his car to a halt next to a parked van. Once the car had stopped several armed men removed the driver from the vehicle and bundled him into the van, while the Baron was quickly handcuffed and the kidnappers made off in his car. The Baron's car was found some hours later in an underground parking structure but contained no usable fingerprints. In the hope of recovering the Baron, the police put in place traffic stops throughout Paris and its suburbs but to no avail. told investigators that he had been handcuffed at gunpoint and thrown into the back of a van, and as such had not seen the faces of the kidnappers. He overheard one of them speaking in German, however, That scenario was persuasive as the kidnapping of Empain came on the heels of the kidnapping and the assassination of the German industrialist Hanns Martin Schleyer by the Red Army Faction.

The police quickly installed themselves in Empain's family home. Presuming that the kidnappers would contact the family, they tapped the phones if not we will kill the Baron.Other businessmen will follow..."

The Armed Core Groups for Popular Autonomy (NAPAP) was an extreme-left, French guerrilla organisation which had claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of a number of foreign diplomats. Although this lead supported the initial police theory, which was echoed in the press, that the kidnapping was politically motivated, the family had in fact received an anonymous telephone call from the real kidnappers which they relayed to the police. The call, which came from the Rue Anjou, close to the headquarters of the Schneider group, demanded that someone go to the Gare de Lyon to collect a message left in locker 595. One of the members of the group, along with the police, proceeded directly to the station where they found the Baron's identity card, a number of letters from the kidnappers, a note from the Baron (including a message to his wife) and a small package. It was the Baron's numerous affairs, however, which grabbed the public's attention and served to damage his previously untarnished reputation. Despite the family's silence, the press maintained a constant presence outside the Baron's home. To add to the media interest, the police refused to confirm the amputation of the Baron's finger which provoked widespread speculation. After much discussion, the group allowed themselves to be convinced by the police to pay a fake ransom, which was a great disappointment to the family, especially the Baron's wife, Silvana Empain, who feared it would put her husband's life in peril.

Relative calm period Four weeks after the kidnapping, on Monday February 20, 1978 a telephone call placed by the kidnappers to the Schneider group's headquarters indicated that the ransom had been reduced to 40 million francs without further negotiations. was chosen to carry out the ransom delivery under the guise of Mr. Mazo, a fictitious aide of the Baron. The kidnappers did not call however and the operation was cancelled later that evening.

Contact Seven weeks after the kidnapping, on Friday March 17, 1978, , a Belgian businessman who was close to the Baron, received a telephone call at his Brussels office. At the second café Mazzieri was told to look for a road map at the bottom of a bin near to one of the entrances to the Porte d'Auteuil metro station. Mazierri got out of the car to tell the driver of the tow truck to move along and it was at this moment that two of the kidnappers, who had been hiding nearby, made off in Mazzieri's car. and tried to induce him to call the kidnappers and tell them to release their hostage. All contact with the kidnappers took place after the hostage had donned a balaclava, preventing him from identifying his interlocutors. with a guillotine on the first day of detention, although dramatic, reassured him as a sign of the kidnappers' intention not to kill him immediately. making it possible for his relatives to collect and pay the ransom.

Alain Caillol, one of the kidnappers, would later reveal certain details in his book Lumière (2012), such as the fact that the man who cut the phalanx had been drawn to the short straw, he was deeply affected by the behavior of those around him, explaining that if he had known about it when he was being held prisoner, he would have "let himself die". On September 7, 1978, several months after his release, he gave his first press conference. In February 1981, the Baron left the Group, selling his stake to the Paribas bank. For the first time, Baron Empain saw the faces of his eight living kidnappers, six men and two women, his brother-in-law Marc Le Gayan and Bernard Guillon. They seemed to him to be "little guys" of no stature. and on another, killed during a robbery in December 1978. His habits, his precise and regular schedule and his stronger physical constitution, enabling him to better withstand detention, as well as the side alley of his home, making it easier to abduct him, determined the choice of his kidnappers.

In popular culture

The song Le Prix d'un homme sung by Michel Sardou on his album Je vole (1978), evokes the Empain affair. The film Rapt (2009) from Lucas Belvaux was inspired on the Empain affair.