Édouard-Jean Empain
French-Belgian industrialist
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Key Takeaways
- 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.
- Biographical details The Baron was the son of Jean, 2nd Baron Empain, and the grandson of Édouard Louis Joseph, 1st Baron Empain.
- He lived in the suburbs of Paris with his second wife Jacqueline (née Ragonaux), a former model, whom he married in 1990.
- He claims he has never been the same since.
- A whiff of scandal that wounded the Baron, so discreet until then, even more fiercely than his two months in captivity".
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).
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