Empain affair

The Empain affair was an incident that began in January 1978, when a Belgian businessman, Baron Édouard-Jean Empain, a wealthy heir and chairman and CEO of the Empain-Schneider group (later Schneider Electric), was kidnapped in Paris. He was released without ransom after 63 days in captivity.

Édouard-Jean Empain

Main article: Édouard-Jean Empain

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).

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".

The abduction

Kidnapping on avenue Foch

Avenue Foch, the site of the abduction, and its side alley.

On Monday, January 23, 1978, at around 10:30 am, Baron Édouard-Jean Empain was abducted from his home in Paris, at no. 33 avenue Foch in the 16th arrondissement, next to Place Charles-de-Gaulle and the Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile.

His car with driver, a grey Peugeot 604, was intercepted in the avenue's side alley some 50 meters after leaving the parking lot: a moped lay across the street to simulate an accident and make the vehicle stop near a parked van. Once the car had stopped, the masked motorcyclist and a group of armed men from the van pushed the driver out of the vehicle and seized the car. The baron was quickly handcuffed, gagged and he was put plaster tied around his eyes, then taken away in his own vehicle, while the driver was thrown into the van. The kidnappers threatened him: "Do as you're told or we'll shoot you." Ten minutes later, the driver, 62-year-old Jean Denis, was released, concussed, near Porte Maillot. The baron's car was found a few hours later in an underground parking lot, with no usable fingerprints.

Although witnesses to the scene were unable to provide the investigators with precise enough information to be of any real use, the circumstances of the kidnapping soon became known. In a bid to find the baron, the police were alerted and set up roadside checks in Paris and its suburbs, but to no avail.

The initial investigation

Édouard-Jean Empain's driver, Jean Denis, released shortly afterwards at Porte Maillot, explained that he had been handcuffed and tied up at gunpoint. He was then violently thrown into the van. He did not see the attackers' faces, but heard one of them speaking in German. The authorities suspected a political hostage-taking by an extreme left-wing movement similar to Germany's Red Army Faction, especially since shortly before, on September 5, 1977, the president of the German employers' association, Hanns Martin Schleyer, had been kidnapped and then executed forty-three days later by the Red Army Faction. The period was marked by numerous kidnappings for ransom, such as that of Italian politician Aldo Moro and, two years later, industrialist Michel Maury-Laribière.

The police took over the Baron's family apartment and permanently filtered telephone communications, assuming that the kidnappers would contact the family. By providing advice, protection and surveillance, they sought to prevent the family from dealing directly with the kidnappers.

French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who was close to Baron Empain, summoned Interior Minister Christian Bonnet and Justice Minister Alain Peyrefitte to set up a "crisis staff". Peyrefitte called for the "denunciation of criminals", and François Mitterrand, First Secretary of the French Socialist Party, spoke of a "step backwards for civilization". A crisis unit similar to that of the government, led by René Engen, the Baron's right-hand man, and Robert Badinter, the industrial group's lawyer, was also set up within the Empain-Schneider group, determined not to let the police take all the decisions alone. The former Director General of the Judicial Police, Max Fernet, was employed as "technical advisor".

First message from the kidnappers

The Gare de Lyon belfry, known as the "Tour de l'Horloge" (Clock Tower).

On Tuesday, January 24, 1978, the day after the kidnapping, the RTL radio group received a phone call claiming responsibility for the abduction:

We, Armed Nuclei for Popular Autonomy, claim the kidnapping of Baron Empain.
We demand the release of our comrades before Wednesday noon or we will kill the baron.
Other patrons will follow....

The Armed Nuclei for Popular Autonomy (NAPAP) is a French far-left armed struggle organization, generally described as terrorist. This false lead, deliberately distilled by the kidnappers, temporarily confirmed the political theory reported in the press, but the police were already favoring another hypothesis. Thirty-six hours after the kidnapping, the hostage's relatives received an anonymous telephone call, which they relayed to the police. The call was made from a bank on rue d'Anjou, close to the Empain-Schneider group's headquarters, and demanded that someone go to the Gare de Lyon to pick up a message left in locker no. 595. René Engen, the group's number 2 and acting boss, accompanied by the crime squad, went to retrieve the message, which in fact contained an identity card, several letters from the kidnappers (written in characters that would not allow the author to be recognized by a graphological search), a few words from Baron Empain, including a message to his wife, and a package. The contents of this message proved that the baron was still alive, and that these were the real kidnappers.

The kidnappers demanded a ransom of eighty million francs from the family (or, due to inflation, around the same amount in today's euros), and were very determined: the package contained a bottle of formaldehyde in which the phalanx of Baron Empain's left little finger had been severed by the kidnappers. The family's mental state was further aggravated by the letter's stipulation that other pieces of the Baron's mutilated body would follow if the ransom was not paid.

A six-day wait

Six days passed without any news from the kidnappers. The police extended their investigation into Baron Empain's private life, with the aim of finding out whether the hostage-taking had anything to do with anything other than purely villainous motives.

Several leads were followed. The baron's passion for poker, in which he played several evenings a week and for large sums, pointed to a possible Mafia connection. The investigation revealed that the Baron had lost eleven million francs a few weeks earlier, and that he had had to borrow money to repay this debt. The press quickly picked up on these revelations. This led to speculation that he might have organized his own kidnapping to pay off his gambling debts. However, it was the Baron's extramarital sex life that crystallized most of the discussion. Reported in the press, which had a field day, the revelations dealt a heavy blow to his hitherto impeccable image. However, the investigation quickly ruled out this possibility.

Wounded by the revelations, the Empain family became increasingly distrustful of journalists and preferred to remain silent. Despite this, the press maintained a constant presence in the vicinity of the Baron's building.

The police refused to confirm that the baron had had a phalanx amputated, prompting speculation and rumors in the media. At the same time, the kidnappers sent the family a new letter. It was a handwritten letter written by Édouard-Jean Empain under the dictation of his captors. It gave instructions on how the ransom was to be paid, and reminded them not to notify the police. The family and the Empain-Schneider group did not immediately inform the police, preferring to consider what course of action to take on their own. As a result, the police became suspicious of the Baron's relatives, who were subjected to increased surveillance.

This surveillance revealed the existence of secret negotiations between the group and the kidnappers, aimed at reducing the sum demanded from eighty million to thirty million francs. In fact, the family and the group felt it would be better to pay the lower sum, while the police, with their experience of kidnappings, rejected any idea of paying a ransom. Over the course of the discussions, the group was convinced by the police and Commissaire Pierre Ottavioli, head of the criminal brigade and head of the investigation, who decided to pay only a dummy ransom, much to the despair of the Baron's wife, Silvana Empain, who felt that this endangered her husband's life, since the payment of a ransom was no guarantee of the hostage's release.

A period of relative calm

Four weeks after the kidnapping, on Monday February 20, 1978, a telephone call from the kidnappers to the Group's head office indicated that the ransom demand had been reduced to forty million francs, without further negotiation. The criminal brigade obtained the support of the anti-gang brigade.

View of Megève.

The meeting set by the kidnappers was to take place two days later in Megève, an upmarket ski resort in Haute-Savoie. A radio communication system was quickly set up in this mountainous area, and scouting was carried out to facilitate the operation. The police were considering the various possible scenarios as to how the kidnappers might proceed, including how they were likely to leave the town. To ensure that the unmarked police cars coming from the Paris region were not spotted, their license plates were changed.

Inspector Jean Mazzieri, renowned for his mastery of the martial arts and his composure, was appointed to deliver the ransom under the pseudonym of "M. Mazo", an associate of the Baron.

The Megeve episode

On the appointed day, Wednesday February 22, 1978, Jean Mazzieri went to the Hotel Le Chalet in Mont d'Arbois, where he was to receive a phone call from a person nicknamed "Felix the Chat", who asked for a "Jacques Dupond" to arrange another meeting place for the exchange. He carried two duffel bags containing 17 million dummy Swiss francs. The location was guarded by a large number of plainclothes policemen, ready to intervene if necessary. But the kidnappers, aware that a large police presence was in place, didn't call and the operation was called off late in the evening. Unsure of what to do, the kidnappers decided to vote on whether to kill their hostage or move him. After a close vote, the second option won out.

Resuming contact

Seven weeks after the kidnapping, on Friday March 17, 1978, Pierre Salik, a Belgian businessman and close associate of Baron Empain, received a phone call at his office in Brussels. The kidnappers wanted to contact René Engen and called Salik to bypass French telephone surveillance. Engen travelled directly from a business trip to Luxembourg to the meeting place, the Hilton Hotel in Brussels, where he had to wait for a call. During this call, he was told that a new exchange would take place and that he would receive instructions by mail. The letter he then received, written by Empain again under the dictation of the kidnappers, gave the instructions, specifying that " it was life or death " if the police were notified. The police, however, were alerted and quickly deployed an alert system for the new meeting scheduled for Thursday March 23 at 3 p.m. at the Fouquet's restaurant on the Champs-Élysées in Paris.

Parisian peregrinations

On the appointed day, policeman Jean Mazzieri was again asked to deliver the ransom under the same pseudonym. A certain "Charlotte Corday" called a "Mr. Marat" as agreed and questioned the person to make sure he was not a police officer. A meeting point, the café Le Murat, Porte d'Auteuil, was set for another telephone call. Throughout the journey, Mazzieri was discreetly followed by other heavily armed police officers. The caller became increasingly suspicious and seemed to want to interrupt the transaction, but Jean Mazzieri managed to play on the kidnappers' greed and the chase continued. Mazzieri was asked to retrieve a road map from the bottom of a garbage can near one of the mouths of the Porte d'Auteuil metro station. The map indicated the address of a café, Le Rond-Point, at Porte d'Orléans, and imposed a precise route and a fixed speed of fifty kilometers per hour. The plan stipulated that the car had to use a service road specially opened by the kidnappers, who intended to ensure that the vehicle was not followed by the police. Jean Mazzieri could, however, radio the other police officers to avoid the trap.

A new route plan sent Mazzieri to Antony, where he had to borrow a car abandoned in a parking lot, which was not equipped with a radio. The glove compartment contained a new meeting place, the café Les Trois Obus, near the Porte de Saint-Cloud metro station. From there, he had to get to the Hilton hotel in Orly. There, after six hours of wandering around Paris and its suburbs, he received a call from the kidnappers who, claiming it was nightfall, decided it was too late and postponed the exchange until the following day.

The arrest

Part of the noise barrier wall with one of the maintenance doors along the freeway near L'Haÿ-les-Roses.

The next day, Friday March 24, 1978, in the early evening, in the bar of the Orly Hilton, Mazzieri received a phone call asking him to go and fill up with petrol, as if he had to prepare for a new treasure hunt. He must then return to the hotel bar. On his return, Mazzieri received another call, in which the impatient caller asked him to stop at the B16 emergency call point on the Autoroute du Sud towards Paris. Once again, an extensive police follow-up was put in place.

While the car was parked on the hard shoulder, a tow truck stopped behind it, thinking it had broken down. The police, on their guard, suspected an accomplice. Jean Mazzieri got out of the car to speak to the tow truck driver and told him that the car had not broken down, but two people lurking in the thicket seized it. After a few hundred meters, the vehicle was stopped near a maintenance door in the twenty-meter-high noise barrier along the A6 freeway at L'Haÿ-les-Roses, which the kidnappers had planned to use to escape, trapping them with a grenade to avoid being followed. An accomplice, posted on the wall with a machine pistol, warned the police of their arrival and fired. A shootout ensued between the police and the kidnappers: one of the kidnappers was killed and another wounded and arrested. Two police officers were wounded. The man shot was Daniel Duchâteau, already convicted of bank robbery; his arrested accomplice, "Alain", was known to the police for petty theft.

The release

On Sunday March 26, 1978, the police questioned Alain, who turned out to be Alain Caillol, to warn his accomplices and ask them to free the hostage. Faced with the police's determination, he gave in after obtaining a guarantee that his accomplices would not be arrested. Inspector Ottavioli suggested that Caillol called them from his own untapped phone. Caillol called twice: "It's all over, the ransom has been seized, we must avoid bloodshed and release the Baron". After these phone calls, he declared that "it was ninety-nine percent done": the Baron's release was close at hand. A tape-recorder recording the conversation enabled the number called to be identified by the tones of the pulses on the keypad.

Two hours later, even before the call could be traced, the Baron was released. After several months of investigation, all the kidnappers were arrested, except one, who died during a robbery while on the run. Two were apprehended in Portugal and the others in France. Two hundred and forty thousand vehicles were checked at roadblocks, and twelve thousand homes were visited. The abduction lasted sixty-three days.

The captivity

According to his testimony, Baron Empain was first taken to a ruined house with no water or electricity. Chained by the neck, he was then locked in an orange camping tent set up in the former Hennocque quarry in Méry-sur-Oise. All contact with the kidnappers took place after the hostage had donned a balaclava, preventing him from identifying his interlocutors. The mutilation of a phalanx 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. The baron suspected that such a large ransom could not be paid, since the kidnappers had abducted, in his words, "the only person with money". He therefore hoped that they would settle for a smaller sum, making it possible for his relatives to collect and pay the ransom. During his imprisonment, the Baron hardly ever saw the light of day, causing him to become depressed. The kidnappers tried to improve his conditions of captivity, for example by giving him a small bedside lamp.

After the Megève attempt, the nervous kidnappers changed their hiding place. The Baron was transported in a nailed crate. The new location was not as cold as the first, and Empain was provided with a reading lamp and a small television, which he left on all the time. According to Empain's testimony, the kidnappers were trying to gain time because, in their view, the more time that passed, the greater the chances of obtaining a ransom. According to him, the kidnappers had set a very high ransom with the aim of collecting a high but lower ransom.

On Friday March 24, 1978 the Baron was released following an appeal from Alain Caillol. Hooded and wearing a blue jogging suit with white stripes, he was abandoned on a vacant lot in a street in Ivry-sur-Seine, near Paris, with a ten-franc bill. It was the first time he had walked for two months. He made his way with difficulty towards a nearby metro station, relieved to be in Paris. He got off at the Opéra station and phoned home to inform his wife of his release. Madame Empain and the police arrived immediately and took the Baron home. In the car, he broke into tears. On April 7, 1978, a photograph of the Baron taken by the kidnappers while he was in custody appeared on the cover of Paris Match with the headline "Empain enchaîné" ("Empain in chains").

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, or the fact that they had voted on the possible execution of the hostage after a month's confinement due to negotiation difficulties.

The reunion

The reunion of "Wado", as he was known to those close to him, with his wife went badly. "I knew you were going out that evening" were the only words she uttered, without any apparent emotion, giving the impression of minimizing the drama that had just ended. She wanted the Baron to go straight to the police to make a statement, while he, having been released, was determined to go home and make his statement later. The untreated wound on his finger was causing him pain, and he was exhausted, malnourished, lacking in physical effort, and had lost twenty kilos. He was hospitalized the next day at the American Hospital of Paris, Neuilly-sur-Seine.

His place of detention, identified by the police thanks to the location of Alain Caillol's call to his accomplice, was the cellar of a bungalow in Savigny-sur-Orge, twenty-six kilometers from Paris, deserted by its occupants before the arrival of the police. However, the names of the tenants and some investigative work enabled us to find the people involved, who, to the surprise of the police, were by no means major figures in organized crime.

Shortly after his release, the Baron decided to divorce his wife. Those close to him wanted explanations for the press revelations about his private life. The Empain-Schneider group, managed in his absence by associates, now had to face up to his return, and the Baron's now public "antics" posed a problem. Leaving one "prison" for another, the Baron declared that he much preferred the former. When he learned of the way the operation had been carried out, 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". Disappointed by the people around him and the reception he received, he left France to live in the United States for six months, "with jeans and a backpack", to get away from it all. He remarried a Frenchwoman and severed most of his ties with the French business community.

In the months following his kidnapping he received many letters of support, and for many years avoided returning to Avenue Foch, where he had been abducted. On September 7, 1978, several months after his release, he gave his first press conference. He confessed to having been pressured not to speak to the press before this date, and acknowledged that this event had changed his way of seeing things, concluding: "Deprivation of liberty is an unbearable state. You know, the important things are to be able to shower and have breakfast in peace every morning". A "different man", he explained that he forgave his kidnappers, but not the police, for having smeared him by suggesting that it could have been an organized self-kidnapping to pay off his debts, and for having revealed his extramarital affairs to his family. He was also surprised by the behavior of those close to him: "I expected to be welcomed differently. Instead of friendship and love, they immediately spoke to me, without waiting for me to recover, about a number of facts from my private life, and asked me to respond". His collaborators also disappointed him: "I can no longer trust anyone, because I've never been able to find out what really happened during my confinement. I found the group's attitude strange". In February 1981, the Baron left the Group, selling his stake to the Paribas bank.

Talking about his 1970s, he says: "All I had to do was move on. People went to bed! A minister would ask me something: if I said no, he wouldn't insist. I've always been a gambler. In 1978, I had a few slates left and right. I didn't really know how to settle them, but as I was the living God, it didn't matter." After his kidnapping, those days were behind him.

The trial

On December 2, 1982, four years after the events, the trial of the "Empain affair" began. It lasted sixteen days, presided over by Judge Chavagnac. Paradoxically, the immediate focus was on the victim, not the accused. For the first time, Baron Empain saw the faces of his eight living kidnappers, six men and two women, including a pimp from Marseilles and his wife, the brothers François and Alain Caillol, Georges Bertoncini aka "Joe le marseillais", his brother-in-law Marc Le Gayan and Bernard Guillon. They seemed to him to be "little guys" of no stature. He publicly announced that he had forgiven them so that the sentence would not be too harsh, confirming what he had said at his first press conference. Indeed, on the strength of his experience of two months without freedom, he was aware of the harshness of this sentence over a long period.

The defense argued that the defendants were merely executors, intermediaries for an unknown sponsor who was too dangerous for them to dare denounce him. The defendants tried to pin responsibility for the most serious acts on Daniel Duchâteau, the kidnapper killed during the shoot-out on the Autoroute du Sud, and on another, killed during a robbery in December 1978. The discovery of plane tickets to Majorca proved that these people, who claimed not to know each other, had in fact all been there together for a week to plan the kidnapping. A court-ordered re-enactment took place on June 27, 1979 at the Savigny-sur-Orge pavilion.

During the trial, the kidnappers stated that they had chosen the baron from a list of three personalities: Marcel Dassault, Baron de Rothschild and him. Later, they would mention Liliane Bettencourt and Claude François, who lived and worked on boulevard Exelmans like Baron Empain. 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 court, the defendants apologized to the baron. The trial also gave Baron Empain the opportunity to explain himself, and thus rehabilitate his image. Then the owner of a small business with fifteen employees, he recounted his ordeal with modesty and dignity, without seeking to accuse the defendants and refusing to give "the sordid details". He adds: "It was a nightmare. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy". In fact, his invective was directed more towards those closest to him and his collaborators – the real culprits, in his view. He also explained how, after his release and before the arrest of his kidnappers, he continued to live in fear because he had signed an IOU for thirty-five million francs under threat and, failing payment, his kidnappers threatened to randomly kill strangers in the street by pinning a copy of the document on them.

The sentences handed down to the kidnappers ranged from fifteen to twenty years' imprisonment. Their accomplices were sentenced to between two and five years.

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.

Bibliography

• Édouard-Jean Empain, La Vie en jeu, Éditions Jean-Claude Lattès, october 1985. (in French) ISBN 978-2-7096-0430-7
• Christophe Hondelatte, Marie-Sophie Tellier et Hugues Raffin, L'Enlèvement du baron Empain, Éditions Michel Lafon, April 2006. (in French) ISBN 978-2-7499-0444-3
• Yvon Toussaint, Les Barons Empain, Éditions Fayard, January, 1996 (in French). ISBN 978-2-213-03126-2
• Alain Caillol, Lumière, Éditions Le Cherche midi, January 19, 2012 (in French). ISBN 978-2749123233
• Dominique Sels, Un sanglier dans le salon, éditions de la Chambre au Loup, December 26, 2013 (in French). ISBN 978-2-9528451-7-5, chap. 4 : « Alain Caillol ». This same chapter is included in volume 1 of the kindle digital edition, entitled Sept salons Botul, January 2014 ASIN B00HTNRF86, ISBN 978-2-9528451-9-9.

Documentaries and TV programs

• « L'enlèvement du baron Empain » – Faites entrer l'accusé in France 2 on April 10, 2005 Official website .
• Words from hostages Jean-Claude Raspiengeas and Patrick Volson (1989). The story of three hostages : Gerhard Vaders, Édouard-Jean Empain et Jean-Paul Kauffmann, VHS, TF1 Video, 1990. First broadcast of the documentary in France, on TF1 in 1990.
• L'affaire Empain, TF1 20h news June 27, 1979, reconstitution of the kidnapping INA
• Édouard Jean Empain, Cartes sur table, A2 September 18, 1978, INA
• Comment ils ont changé de vie (2012). Presentation by Mireille Dumas and first broadcast in France in France 3 on May 14, 2012. Édouard-Jean Empain and Alain Caillol were invited to join on set.
• « L'affaire du baron Empain : deux mois sans voir le jour » le March 29, 2018 on Enlèvements in C8.
• « Qui a enlevé ces millionnaires français » – Héritages on NRJ 12 of February 16, 2021. Second story of the episode « Baron Empain: cet enlèvement qui a bouleversé les français ».