“Good night Olympia! Are you okay? Are you hot?” These phrases had been heard thousands of times on the walls of the auditorium on the Boulevard des Capucines in Paris, but never from the mouth of a boss. On Wednesday 18 September, the owner of Free, Xavier Niel (an individual shareholder in the Le Monde group), gave a show on this legendary stage, in his own way, like a star of entrepreneurship, which this year became, according to the magazine Challengesthe ninth richest man in France, with more than 22 billion euros.
In front of an audience committed to his cause – the seats on sale sold out within forty-eight hours – and in front of a host of guests, including businessmen Jacques-Antoine Granjon (Veepee) and Jacques Veyrat (Impala), banker Matthieu Pigasse (member of the supervisory board of the Le Monde group) and politicians Thierry Solère and Olivier Véran, Xavier Niel spent an hour alone on stage, microphone in hand and aided by a teleprompter, revealing the secrets of his wealth.
“Make mistakes. I’m the king of falls and that’s why I’m not doing so badly!” “Trust others, diversity is what makes you successful.” “Entrepreneurship is the best way to unlock the social ladder”He said. Basically, his speech resembles that of management schools, but less so in form. The first piece of advice revealed by Xavier Niel was entitled “go to prison”, in reference to his imprisonment for a month in 2004 in the Santé prison in Paris for concealing corporate misappropriation and aggravated pimping.
“It is not the policies that change your life”
This show served as a promotion for the publication, on September 25, of a book of interviews, written with Jean-Louis Missika, published by Flammarion and entitled A real desire to make a mess (304 pages, 19.99 euros), in reference to the arrival of Free to the mobile market in 2012. “We blew it!” We gave him back tens of billions of euros of purchasing power. That’s my pride. Seriously, it’s not politicians who change your life, who can change your life, it’s you, it’s us! »He said to the “yehaaaa” in the room, before finishing with a “Thank you Olympia, thank you France!”to the sound of In my own way, by Frank Sinatra.
Determined to become an entrepreneur, Lancelot, 29, did not learn much, but he appreciated the simple fact that Xavier Niel took the microphone: “This breaks the great silence of billionaires who prefer to hide.” Present in the room, Gilles Balbastre, director of New guard dogsA documentary released in 2012 about the media and its links to power, sees it rather as an expression of the growing control of business leaders: “For my next film, which will describe the implications of the digital revolution and its promoters in society, it is a godsend.” Scheduled for release before 2026, this documentary will be titled Those who carry the leash.
