2024-01-11 08:44:48
Under his leadership, the group grew into an empire. The former CEO of the Total group Thierry Desmarest has died at the age of 78, his entourage announced. According to Le Monde, the father of three children had suffered from Alzheimer’s disease for around ten years. Joining Total in 1981, he rose through the ranks until taking charge in 1995. He remained there until 2010, forever marking his mark in the history of the oil company, both for his brilliant successes and for the disasters such as the sinking of the Erika in 1999 or the explosion of the AZF factory in 2001 in Toulouse.
On Wednesday, the new boss of TotalEnergies preferred to pay tribute to the memory of his predecessor, who died at the age of 78. “By bringing together Total, Fina and Elf, he is the man who built and made our company a world-class group in the top 5 majors,” reacted Patrick Pouyanné. “We would not be what we are without his vision and his strategic spirit. Thank you dear president, thank you Thierry,” added the leader.
Often described as a fine strategist, Thierry Desmarest has also suffered heavy criticism, in particular for his disastrous management of the Erika affair. On December 12, 1999, the Maltese-flagged tanker ran aground off the coast of Brittany, polluting 400 km of French coastline. Charterer of the ship, the company Total is on the front line but its director does not seem moved by what will remain as one of the worst environmental disasters of the last century. Perceived as reacting coldly as a technocrat to the emotion linked to the pollution of the Breton and Vendée coasts, Thierry Desmarest minimizes TotalFina’s responsibility and does not go to the site. He then admitted to having “initially underestimated” the scale of the oil spill. His group had definitely been convicted in 2012 by the court of cassation to a maximum fine of 375,000 euros and to pay more than 200 million euros in damages.
Around thirty deaths in Toulouse in 2001
Two years later, he went to Toulouse on the same day of the explosion at the AZF chemical factory, owned by a subsidiary of Total. He had set up a crisis unit and toll-free numbers, even though the accident caused around thirty deaths and thousands of injuries.
Born on December 18, 1945 in Paris, Thierry Desmarest was the son of a magistrate at the Court of Auditors. Since 2010, he was honorary president of Total, which became TotalEnergies in 2021, after handing over the presidency to Christophe de Margerie who had already inherited general management in 2007. Thierry Desmarest had briefly served as interim president after Christophe’s death de Margerie in 2014 in a plane crash in Russia. It was Patrick Pouyanné, current CEO of TotalEnergies, who took over. Thierry Desmarest has also been a director of Air Liquide, Bombardier, Sanofi and Renault, retiring for the last one in 2018 citing age issues.
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