When Jean-René Fourtou was given the top job at Rhône-Poulenc back in 1986 there were whispers at the Paris Bourse that France’s leading chemical company might be obliged to declare bankruptcy before the new millennium. Sales had stagnated at around $7.5 billion a year. Earnings were just $250 million, a 3% net margin in an industry where well-run companies were earning twice as much. Enter Jean-René Fourtou, only 47 years of age when his call up from the Elysée came. Of course the request was couched in an elegance and grace befitting the beauty of the French language. But the bottom line was this: would he please be so kind as to bail out one of France’s leading institutions before it was too late? Setting about his daunting task with an impressive dose of energy and enthusiasm, within less than a decade Fourtou managed to increase productivity and internationalise the group in what has to be one of the most spectacular turnarounds in France’s economic history. He has been memorably described as the Platini of Rhône-Poulenc, after France’s most famous footballing son - although whether or not this will remain a flattering description we will have to wait until after the World Cup finals to see.

The footballing analogy most certainly is valid, however, in relation to the Rhône-Poulenc group itself, the company having been kicked back and forth in the nationalisation-privitisation game played out in France since the 1980s. Set for re-privatisation after the Gaullists returned to power in 1986, the stock market collapse of the following year meant that privatisation was postponed until 1993. Not a bad move, as it turned out, because by that time the company’s value had increased to 34 billion French francs - evidence of Fourtou’s early and nifty footwork. Today the value of the group has more than tripled again.

"It can never be a good thing to have the State overseeing the interests of shareholders", Fourtou reflects in flawless English from his slick 12^th floor suite of offices at the company’s Paris headquarters. "You end up having to ask a Ministers what to do - and often he or she simply doesn’t know anything about the company. Its just bad management, even if it seems to be all very satisfactory and sound on paper."

Rhône-Poulenc is now one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical and chemical group in the world, its development sharply focused on life sciences (pharmaceuticals, animal and plant health), complemented by specialty chemicals for industry - that’s high-performance chemicals as well as fibers and polymers. Apart from serving the interests of its share-holders, its self-declared mission in life could hardly be more noble - to contribute to improving the well-being of men, women and children throughout the world. There are more than 68,000 employees on the company’s payroll (Nobel Prize winners Jean-Marie Lehn and Pierre-Gilles de Gennes included) - staff being dispersed across no less than 160 countries. Fourtou’s goal-scoring strategy has been to spend heavily in order to penetrate specific markets - particularly those in Asia and America - whilst at the same time divesting some 100 companies in commodity chemicals and textiles, the historic core businesses of the group, which was founded by Etienne Poulenc as a chemical compounds company back in the middle of the 19^th century. Plus a massive $1.4 billion a year R & D effort has secured wonder drugs such as Lovenox (anti-clotting) and Taxotere (treatment for breast cancer). It has also uncovered the key insecticide molecule Fipronil (discovered in the UK) a phenylpyrazole, whose uses range from protecting Third World rice crops to creating the money-spinning Frontline drops that kill fleas on domestic pets.

"One of my most important strategies has been to internationalise the group", he says, with an understandable measure of pride. "When I arrived turnover in the U.S. was between 250 and 300 million dollars - this year we gave gone over the 4 billion dollar mark."

An unashamed Anglophile, Fourtou also turned his attention to the UK market, snapping up Fisons for $2.9 billion in a move which added 500 million dollars a year in sales in asthma/allergy treatment, itself a massive $12 billion-a-year market. In fact the company has some 25 separate sites in the U.K, where it employs over 5,000 people. "We have actually owned May and Baker since 1927", Fourtou comments before adding in a Michael Caine style afterthought that "not a lot of people know that." It could even be said that Fourtou has become one of France’s leading goal-scorers - because the company’s share price has been the highest on the Paris Stock Exchange - rising by a massive 67% in 1996 and a further 54% for 1997.

He might well have graduated from France’s prestigious Ecole Nationale d’Administration - in common with virtually every other captain of French industry - but Fourtou did not have an easy passage through childhood, his mother having died in 1940 shortly after his birth in Libourne, near Bordeaux. Having joined the French army as a cavalry officer, Jean-René’s father had little choice other than to place baby Fourtou in the care of his grandfather across the Spanish border in San Sebastian, a training which, he will now tell you, served him well.

"Up until the age of 20 I was absolutely convinced that I would live in Spain. I was extremely marked by my Spanish childhood - but in a very positive way. The Spanish are more heart than head, which can be both good and bad. I like to think that I have got a good balance between the two - the Spaniard in me and then the more classical training of the French grande école."

Hardly surprising, then, that Fourtou should have emerged as one of the leading advocates of forging ahead full pace with the European Union. But it would be a mistake to be lulled into thinking that Fourtou is all work and no play. Far from it. For Jean-René is anything but a dull boy. He is a passionate fan of football (surprise, surprise), an avid book reader - with various forms of the arts appearing within his own family - and he is proud to tell you that whilst one son is an engineer, two others earn their keep as a sculptor and flamenco dancer respectively. Which perhaps goes some way to explain why Fourtou takes an extremely broad view of his role at the head of Rhône-Poulenc. Of course the share price is important, of course research and development are top priorities -you would hardly expect him to say otherwise.

"Every day we are confronted with problems relating to issues of health and humanity - people with incurable diseases, countries experiencing epidemics - especially in Africa - in fact we happen to be the leading pharmaceutical company on that continent. Today 50% of illnesses do not have a medicine - but research for these medicines is tremendously costly. In order to do this we must make profits. The same is true when it comes to problems of agriculture. That said I am not the head of the World Health Organisation - although naturally there are links and overlaps between our respective fields. But economic development is the backbone to it all."

Shortly after settling into his new offices at Rhône-Poulenc Fourtou introduced a ruling that all senior managers within the company must own stock with a value equal to at least one year’s pay. In fact some 80% of employees are shareholders, half of them outside France. No wonder there is a positive buzz about the company’s T-shaped office building overlooking the île de la Jatte at Courbevoie, for here one can positively sense the stimulating atmosphere of colleagues working together in a common undertaking, a record of which Fourtou can be justly proud.

The interview has almost come to an end. The tell tale signs are not difficult to detect - aides anxiously looking at their watches, secretaries running back and forth with urgent memos.

"Can I just ask one last question, please?" "How would you like to be remembered here at the group, say fifty years down the line."

"As the man who created the new Rhône-Poulenc", he replies thoughtfully.

An epitaph with which even his sternest critics would be unable to take issue.