Abrami, Léon - The Saint-Etienne Airfields Affair (1930) (ebook)

Abrami, Léon - The Saint-Etienne Airfields Affair (1930)

Where one of the ancestors of the Safran Group is accused - wrongly - of embezzlement.

In 1929, the French Air Minister, Laurent Eynac, encouraged French aircraft manufacturers to move their production sites southwards, far from the German border. In the event of hostilities, it is necessary to preserve the supply of the armies. Hence the importance of Toulouse and Bordeaux in the French aeronautical landscape.

Among the companies targeted by this programme were Gnôme and Rhône, at the time one of the largest engine manufacturers in the world. Gnôme et Rhône had sent engineers and prospectors to the regions of Bordeaux, Marseille and Nevers, when by chance an Aero-Club banquet brought together the Minister and the Senator of Saint-Etienne at the same table.

In 1928, the City of Saint-Etienne had acquired a promise to sell two plots of land: it offered to Gnôme and Rhône to buy them.

Immediately, the political opposition seized the affair and tried to mount a major scandal that led to a lawsuit. Gnôme et Rhône is accused of unduly enriching itself on the backs of its shareholders and the French taxpayer. Posters, brochures and newspapers mention embezzlement of more than a hundred million francs at the time.

A plea by Léon Abrami (lawyer and politician) sufficiently interesting to justify its publication: it reproduces the atmosphere of the political institutions of the time and contains, among other things, a beautiful verse on worker paternalism in 1930.

In the end, Gnome et Rhône will not go to Saint-Etienne. The company will keep its production facilities in Paris, Argenteuil and Gennevilliers. Only the design office will go to Limoges.

116 pages - in French