Nor can you accuse Messier of allowing the grass to grow under his feet. For within months of taking over from his predecessor at Générale he began to trim the work-force by 10 percent (down to 220,000 - but still the largest private employer in France) in addition to sealing a series of alliances with non-French companies that brought $3 billion into the company’s depleted coffers. Acting faster than greased lightening he sold off $1.6 of property interests in Europe, disposed of ailing assets in health care, and cashed in his majority stake in cable TV. Only then to go on an alternative shopping spree, increasing his stake in Havas, the French communications group, to 30%, completing a deal in which British Telecom, Mannesmann and SBC Communications acquired 26%, 15% and 15% stakes, respectively, in the company’s telecommunications subsidiary, Cegetel - before going on to buy out Leigh Interest, the British waste management company, for $187.4 million in the August of this year. Acknowledged as a deal-maker extraordinaire, within the first eighteen months of his stewardship Messier had steered the company back into the black again, with net profits of $320 million on revenues of $28.5 billion. It was with understandable pride, therefore, that his eager young aides were rushing around distributing Générale’s quarterly results at a press conference in Paris just a few weeks ago, the conclusion of which triumphantly proclaimed: "a healthy group, restructured and on course for a period of further rapid and sustainable growth". Game, set and match then to Messier?

"No. Not at all", he told Director magazine in an exclusive interview carried out within a stone’s throw of Paris’s most famous boulevard the Champs Elysées. "Of course the changes at Générale have been significant during the last eighteen months. Not just by French, but also by international standards. If you look at our divestitures during this period, they are close to 10 billion dollars - and I don’t think that there are many groups in the world that have gone through such a revamping in such a short period of time. I have made some new choices and tried to recover some of the flexibility of the group. I feel that we are well-placed too, because in so far as utilities and communications are concerned, there is much to be done in the years ahead."

Fluent in English and oozing confidence, energy and style, Messier’s brand of management is based upon delegating where possible. And he wasted no time in reducing the 82 people reporting to him directly to a hard core of just 9. That said he is anxious to project himself as a man of the people which, in his case, is more than merely the words of the Générale’s slick PR machine at work. He recently organized a massive consumer meeting in Paris to hear what Monsieur and Madame Average thought about the water industry, in addition to regular get-togethers with the new intake, his self-imposed remit to instill in his employees, old and new alike, the concept of service, something which has only ever been noticeable by its absence in so far as French utilities were concerned. A former partner at Lazard Frères and Company, Messier was heavily influenced by his six months as an investment broker in New York and admits to being entirely at ease in the American culture and business environment.

Ask Messier to pinpoint where he would anticipate further areas of growth, however, and you will soon see that his eyes are fixed firmly on this side of the Atlantic - and in Great Britain in particular. Why? "Because the UK market is flexible", he affirms, "and the key question ‘who is best placed to deliver community services’ has been treated in the right way. This was one of the positive achievements of Thatcherism, in my view, and I am pleased to see that it is something which has been accepted entirely by Tony Blair."

To say that Générale is a merely a large conglomerate would be understating matters considerably. Active in over 80 countries, it is the top energy company in Europe, operating 187 municipal heating works; when it comes to waste management it is likewise the leader in Europe, collecting an annual 17 million tonnes of household and non-hazardous industrial waste; it is Europe’s leading private transport operator with a fleet of 8,00 local and intercity buses and 2,400 rail units transporting over 600 million passengers a year. The list goes on and on, with an impressive range of additional firsts in the fields of multimedia (no 1 in France) and telecommunications (no 1 private operator in France). In fact international business has been growing so fast (51 billion French francs in 1996) that it now accounts for one-third of net sales. It is in the UK, however, where growth has been most solid and sustained. For the UK today represents approximately 10% of Générale’s world turnover - and close to 25% of international turnover.

Did you know, for example, that Générale supplies over 3.2 million customers in the UK through its subsidiary General Utilities, whose four distribution companies (Three Valleys, North Surrey, Tendring Hundreds and Folkestone and Dover) saw to it that their customers were kept supplied during the 1995 drought? The prevailing philosophy is that privatization reigns supreme, the British economic landscape having undergone a sea-change during the 1980s, and thus providing a perfect window of opportunity for Générale, which now employs more than 28,000 people in the UK and generating net sales of more than £1.4 billion in the process. Ask Messier if he would like to see a good dose of British economic liberalism exported to France and he looks at you as if it might not be inappropriate to call upon the men in white coats to come and take you away.

"Yes. You could say that", he says with more than a touch of irony. "We really appreciate the flexibility of the UK market where people have become accustomed to looking at the relationship between quality and price. And I was very pleased to see that almost immediately upon coming to power Mr. Blair spoke about the possibility of privatizing the London underground - and improving the quality of the tube through the introduction of private capital and investment."

Of course Messier was not giving away whether or not the London underground might be next on his list, but the idea of a French water company shuttling you around between Mile End and Charing Cross is certainly not as fanciful as it might first sound. After all, the Générale’s subsidiary Connex is already managing 20% of the country’s railways - transporting 188 million passengers in the UK. Which has in turn led to employment for 7,000 people and FF5.4 billion in net sales. In fact Connex was the first foreign company to be selected by OPRAF as an operator, running the lines of Network South Central for seven years, their trains serving the southern suburbs of London, Surrey, Sussex, and parts of Hampshire, Dorset and Kent. Then came another success - the contract for SouthEastern, the network serving the south-east suburbs of London and connecting Dover, Hastings and Ramsgate from five stations in the capital.

Which is likely to mean that Messier is all in favour of proceeding full steam ahead with monetary union, n’est ce pas?

"Yes, of course. I just cannot imagine Britain being out of EMU for too long. And I am sure that the EMU will one day be reinforced and boosted by Britain being in."

"So you would be critical of Gordon Brown’s recent announcement that Britain will not be entering EMU, at least until after the next election?"

If Messier is entirely at ease with political questions it is not surprising. After all, he was heading up the then Finance Minister Edouard Balladur’s private office at the age of 29, where he was given responsibility for overseeing the conservative government’s privatization programme.

"Look", he replies, "I don’t want to criticize Gordon Brown or Tony Blair in relation to EMU. All I am saying is that as an industrialist I see all the advantages for business through the creation of EMU, and that I am convinced that Britain has a lot to bring to the construction of Europe, both in terms of economics and politics too. I just cannot imagine Britain being out for too long."

You would have to spend some considerable time with Messier for him to able to rattle off a list of Générale assets and subsidiaries in the UK. But unbeknown to the British public the company has been slowly but steadily acquiring interests in a number of diverse fields - which includes the operation of the South East London Combined Heat and Power plant (SELCHP) - the most efficient waste-to-energy plant in the UK; Norwest Holst’s activities in the construction industry (the company build the new BBC headquarters); and Onyx UK, which keeps a number of London’s most prestigious sites clean. And then there is General Healthcare, a Générale de Santé subsidiary, which leads the market for private healthcare in the UK. The company runs 26 hospitals and clinics with a total of almost 1,400 beds and ten psychiatric clinics - altogether treating more than 100,000 per year.

If all of this sounds a little breathless and difficult to digest - especially when you consider that these areas of activity are only in relation to the UK - then for anyone who wants to keep up with Messier a visit to the gym might well be required. Because this brilliant x-enarque (as graduates of France’s two most prestigious grandes écoles are called) is not shy to remind you that he is at the beginning of his term of office rather than at the end.

"When I was voted in as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Societé Générale des Eaux", he reveals, I was greatly honoured. I am only the 9^th Chairman of this great company. Which means that the average term of office of each Chairman has been 18 years. And at the Board meeting when I was elected the only reflection of my predecessor was not to reduce the average age. I was happy to make such a commitment. Which means that I will not be returning to the world of politics - this is what matters to me most - the real world - having a direct impact on the everyday lives of ordinary people by providing them with excellent service in whatever field that might happen to be."

"Is it fair to say then, Mr. Messier, that ‘there’s no business like eaux business?"

"That’s right", the Générale boss retorts, quick as a flash, "and you ain’t seen nothin’ yet."