Etienne de Lassus Saint-Geniuses industrial French, Large-officer of the Legion of honor, President of the Thomson, the Company of the Lamps, vice-president of Alsthom.

Born on June 7th, 1887, Paris VIII, deceased on June 3rd, 1979 with Lavelanet de Comminges (the Hte-Garonne), married on January 16th, 1919, Paris, with Madeleine Margot.

Going down from the Land-surveyor of the the Mississippi, and Capitoul of Toulouse, Jean-Pierre de Lassus, Marie André Charles Etienne de Lassus Saint-Geniuses are 4th of a phratry of 6. His/her parents are musicians of talent, Henri de Lassus Saint-Geniuses, and Alice Boissonnet of the Key, friends of César Franck, Henri Duparc, Gabriel Fauré, Vincent d' Indy which dedicated melodies to them.
Il loses his/her father at the 9 years age, is raised by his/her mother, woman brilliant, demanding and pious, who, widowed, are assisted by her father, the General Baron Estève Boissonnet of the Key, polytechnician, officer Arabist, at one time friendly guard then of Abd El-Kader of which it translated works.

If Etienne does not succeed in following his grandfather and his/her François older brother with the polytechnic school it is as an engineer, graduate of the University of Electricity (become Supélec) which it returns at 23 years to the Thomson, in 1910. It was then a company having and managing patents, with, for only industrial exploitation, the materials " lourds". It was affected with the " punt-forme" factory of Saint-Ouen where the tests of these large materials were carried out. It had carried out its military service as officer of Dragon S, regiment based with Épernay, and had the painful memory to be sent to break strikes in the Northern .

First World War

It carries out the war of 14/18, initially in France, then in the Balkans. In the marshes of Vardar (Greek Macedonia, close to Thessalonique), infested mosquitos and wasps, it will côtoiera Russian officers, and will have to stop attacks the Bulgarian ones. Before its demobilization, it belonged to a delegation of armistice in Romania.

Part of its permissions were taken with the Thoron with Talloires, at Gustave Noblemaire, family friend. Etienne had leaning certain for his little girl Madeleine Margot, whom he will marry two months after the Armistice! She is the girl of Maurice Margot, managing director of the PLM, which unified the railroads French during the 1st world war.

Inter-war period

Of return to Thomson, Etienne de Lassus becomes in 1922 chief of the Électrification department of the Railroads, and occupies himself, inter alia, of the electrification of the Tarbes-Toulouse line, with the feet of the Pyrenees of his childhood. He joined the head office of the group in 1925, there côtoie big bosses whom he admires, and who will appreciate his value quickly: the financier Jean Parmentier, Robert Hecker who call it with the direction of the services in 1928, and which it succeeds in 1935 as managing director, finally Auguste Detœuf, which it will succeed, when in December 1940 Vichy creates the president's function Managing director.

Under the aegis of the above-named big bosses, he worked in 1928 with the fusion of the electrical material and mechanics (railway) heavy by marrying Alsatian electrical engineerings and the similar departments of Thomson to create Alsthom. Thomson had then preserved into clean the exploitation of a rather reduced technical field. Opened then an industrial phase, of development, widening to new fields. It is side of the applications of the T.S.F which all its efforts turned. It seizes all the importance of the development of the new inventions: emission reception of the Hertzian waves (takeover of Ducretet), manufacture of the record players, record player, apparatuses of talking films. Being surrounded of the councils of the French musical eminent personages, the sound reproduction reaches unknown improvements then. Under its immediate direction the factory of Nanteuil is undertaken in 1929. It had a presentiment of in the same way the importance of the future international connections by cables, repurchased in 1930 and developed the company of the Wire-drawing mills of Chauny, opened the factory of Bohain. With this intention it recruited the most brilliant engineers to be harnessed with this field which, at the beginning did not have anything very exciting from the technical point of view.

In 1938 it is the control of the General Company of Radiology with which it launches Thomson in the field of x-rays, radiodiagnosis and nuclear medicine.

Second world war

During the Second world war, it is a question of ensuring a minimum of activity the factories, to safeguard the employment of the personnel, and of resisting, as far as possible, with the requirements of the enemy. Thus no armament will leave the Thomson factories, whereas in 1939 the factory of Nevers manufactured propellers of combat. Very discrete over all this period, Etienne de Lassus will keep silence during like afterwards. One knows that it used such or such factory distant to protect from the members from the personnel, who were Jewish, ingénia to be made pass clandestinely from the radioelectric material to resistance. It tied there solids friendships with large resistant, future politicians of foreground, like Felix Gaillard, Maurice Bourges-Maunoury, Jacques Chaban-Delmas. “Despite everything the zeal deployed by the " committees of épuration" who were formed with the Release, no " act of collaboration" could not be raised against its leaders, not more than it (Thomson) was not liable to the confiscation of illicit profits”.

After the mourning of his Francois, brother died for France into 40, like his dear cousin Charles de Lassus, in 1916, Etienne was proud that Jean-Pierre de Lassus Saint Geniuses, the son of this last, covers glory in the maquis of resistance: under the pseudonym of colonel Legrand, this one ordered the FFI of Drome, and released Valence. Etienne de Lassus maintained a correspondence coded with his brother Gaston, officer retained in captivity in Germany. Thus it gave news of Dourif, (designating the Americans under the name of a friend living in the USA) which remained with the Key (Algerian property of Boissonnet indicating in turn Algeria, free France, the de Gaulle General), or evoked the “voyages” of fire the Comtesse of Ségur (born Rostopchine) and indicating the Soviet Union). When his/her Raymond son announced to him that it was too committed itself in resistance, it covered its disappearance, so that it did not appear suspect with the eyes of whoever. Thus it was, discrete, sober, not very inclined with épancher, and always firm in its convictions. Raymond de Lassus will be stopped, tortured and off-set in the Nazi camp of Neuengamme which it will leave, miraculeusement survivor, in 1945.

Post-war period

De facto at the head of Thomson since 1935, Etienne de Lassus had made profitable the industrial sleep dark years to imagine, define, apply what was to become Thomson of the future. " Its clear vision of the future makes him have a presentiment of the importance that will take the sectors of professional electronics, the radio and television, radiology and the electric household appliances. It decides to give them a dominating place in the activities of the group in their devoting all the average materials and human of which it can disposer".

Its genius of large captain of industry was to combine qualities of visionary, realizer and born leader.

" He saw far, had a presentiment of the things, but could carry them out. Always the concrete one, far from the sterile dreams, it carried out with audacity its companies knowing to take risks which could have frightened if they had not been carefully calculés" .

It felt the need for equipment of the French households, built and developed factories of electric household appliances (first French factory of manufacture of compressors of refrigerators in Nevers in 1954, washing machines, cookers Foot-Saddle), radio, then of television (factory of Angers in 1958) etc Enfin and especially it created of any part the department of electronics, being combined for that with his friends of the General Electric Company in the USA. The activity went from the components, semiconductors, with the transmitter S of radio and television, to which joined the radars of aviation, on the ground then embarked.

Its last philosopher's stone, which was going to change the company radically, was to engage Thomson in the field of the electronics of armament. With beginning of the year 50 it was a question for NATO of manufacturing in Europe the missiles of defense Hawk, surface-to-air missiles. Whereas the field was unknown, it succeeds in making admit Thomson as leader of an Européen grouping of studies and manufacture of the machines, making him allot the lions share. It is only after it created and builds electronic the research and studies center of Bagneux. The ground of Bagneux making up of old chalk careers, it was necessary to sit the buildings on prestressed concrete pylons: it was a first, carried out with the assistance of his/her eminent friend Albert Caquot, member of the Institute. It inaugurated this center, of which it was particularly proud, in March 1958, at the 70 years age.

In the field of the industrials merger of undertakings and industrial merger, it was a precursor, because the thing, so frequent today, was it hardly then. It was seen that it had taken part into 28 in the creation of Alsthom (of which he was only vice-president who cannot carry out face the too heavy load of Thomson and Alsthom). Later, it inserted in the capital the General one of Electricity with his friend Ambroise Roux. All was thus ready for the later fusion of this unit which was to give Alcatel-Alsthom, first French industrial company of the end of the century. in the same way it made so that all is ready so that after him Thomson repurchases its competitor CSF to give the Thomson-CSF, and Brandt, to become the European nº1 of the electric household appliances and television. It is known that the electric household appliances for summer sold off by the chairman of Thomson have nationalized, which however consolidated the place of leader of Thomson as regards television.

In the field of lighting, President of the Company of the Lamps (Mazda), it bought before the war the small company Car-lamps which held the patent of the yellow lamps for cars: one judges development there too.

Its intention was to withdraw itself at 70 years, but the banks and the board of directors expressly required of him to continue up to 73 years. It is thus in 1960, after 50 years devoted to Thomson, including 25 years at its head, that Etienne de Lassus, withdrew from the businesses: under its direction, the manpower of the group has quintuplet, and the turnover multiplied by 9. (in the 15 years which followed, thanks to fusions which it had prepared, manpower and CA were to still grow in the same respective proportions).

In 1977, J-M Fourier, his successor with the company of the Lamps, and finance manager of Thomson summarized his action thus: " Mr. Etienne de Lassus Saint-Geniuses, in a friendly way known like the baron de Lassus, carried, with plume and the respect of the high traditions, the Group towards entirely new destinies, the electric household appliances, television, professional electronics, first steps of its current power, so much it had known to distinguish there from the future industrial battle fields. It mobilized all the resources of the group for the investment and the conquest, so much were vast, after the war, the possibilities of action. It left with its successor, Mr. Ernest Cordier, his friend, man of peace and large council, the care to make a success of with glare the necessary armistices after the combat."

In June 1979, at the time of the standard general meeting which followed her death, her successor with the Thomson, Mr. Walhain, evoked his memory, rare fact within such a framework: " for this period agitated (39/45) it knew, after having preserved the existence of the company, to give to its activity the orientations with a future which constituted the base of the majority of our current developments. With an exceptional intuition, it invests all the means which it had in the emergent industries in Europe, which were then Professional Electronics, the materials General public, the medical instrumentation, and which was to know during the following decades of the remarkable growths. We will not forget the services that President de Lassus thus returned to our group; its perspicacity, its courage, its intelligence and its plume deeply marked all those which had the privilege to know it well and to appreciate its attaching personnalité."

Its moral authority was such as Ambroise Roux required of him to remain President of the Company of the Lamps up to 82 years, and that Valery Giscard d'Estaing, then Minister for Finance, required of him, with nearly 85 years, to still return to arbitrate a conflict.

" That of which it was more to trust, it is, from almost nothing, to have known to create, animate, make terribly effective in multiple fields of the thousands of engineers, executives, of which much very high level, and to be the uncontested and admired chief about it. People of any level, were faithful and more than devoted for him. It was fully the chef".

Concurrently to that, hidden well, its heart of artist, inherited his parents. Patron, it supported, for example, explorations of the Commander Cousteau, equipping in material with underwater lighting his ship Calypso. He had created in Thomson the Editions of Tambourinaire, where he made publish the writings of his owner and predecessor Auguste Detœuf, under the pseudonym of Barenton, of which the tasty " matter of a confiseur" ; it also published there works of Maurice Ravel. With the appearance of the microgroove in 48, it launches the mark the bird quadrant and makes record and engrave interpretations of chamber orchestra Pro Arte, under the direction of Kurt Redel. With Mazda, it made illuminate for the first Chambord time in 1937, then Versailles in 1954 etc

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