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FROM OBSCURITY TO THE SPOTLIGHT
Born in Montauban in the southwest of France, Gallois graduated from the École des Hautes Études Commerciales and also attended the École Nationale d'Administration. Beginning in 1972 he worked in relative obscurity in various
Louis Gallois.
AP/Wide World Photos
. posts for France's Ministries of Economy and Finance, Research and Industry, and Defense. In 1989 he emerged in the spotlight when he was named head of the Société Nationale d'Étude et de Construction de Moteurs d'Aviation (Snecma), a state-run enterprise involved in developing and manufacturing civil and military engines for Mirage jet fighters and Airbus airliners.
Gallois made a good first impression on colleagues. He visited the company's factories on the periphery of Paris and appeared to be more businesslike than his predecessor had been. Over time, however, critics noted that Gallois was unsuccessful in resolving many of Snecma's basic problems, including an overabundance of workers, inflexible work practices, protectionist pricing, and corporate extravagance.
In July 1992 Gallois was appointed chairman and CEO of Aérospatiale, the state-subsidized company involved in France's aerospace and defense industries. Although widely credited with extensive restructuring and cost cutting, Gallois could not keep the company from losing money on an epic scale. Many analysts noted that Gallois was hindered by the fact that the industry was precariously divided between state and private ownership. Nevertheless critics of Gallois, as noted by Ian Verchere in the European, complained that he "failed to transform" the business "into a profitable operation while continuing to call on the state for lavish injections of capital to stave off bankruptcy" (April 18, 1996). For his part Gallois accused the French government of endlessly vacillating over whether to provide the additional funding that he needed to institute privatization and a new economic order within the company.