The day the Peugeot dynasty had to make up its mind to let go of the steering wheel

Investigation“Successions Season II” (5/6). This old family at the origin of the famous automobile brand resigned itself, in 2012, to recapitalization, a necessary step to avoid bankruptcy. While the company is now part of the Stellantis group, sharp disagreements between some heirs have left their mark.

Paris-Montbéliard, two hours and forty by TGV to the east. A few minutes before arriving, the landscape changed, as if we were leafing through an old history-geography textbook at high speed. First appeared, in the background, the Jura mountains that separate France from Switzerland. Then a succession of austere villages, where you can always guess a Protestant temple three steps from the church. Finally, spread over hectares of a formerly marshy area, the car factories of Sochaux, which have shaped the decor and the people for more than a century. The symbol of the power of a family that came close to bankruptcy in 2012 after decades of spectacular expansion.

Thierry Peugeot, 64, took over from his father, Pierre, as chairman of the PSA supervisory board here in 2012.

Thierry Peugeot, 64 years old, comes here every weekend, like his father before him. “I leave with my worries, I come back with solutions”, he enthuses, as if on vacation by the sea. There he took over one of the many houses built in the last century by his ancestors, one of those big mansions with locals still call the “Peugeot castles”.

Haunted by the automobile

Barely arrived in the parking lot of the station, where he always leaves a car, his gaze direction of the parked vehicles… This furtive identification, almost all the members of the family did it in front of us. Check the brand of the cars is ” an obsession “, they acknowledge. On the terrace of the Laurent restaurant, the Parisian table where his cousin Robert had arranged to meet us a few days earlier, a simple wink had been enough for the waiter to bring the Peugeot pepper mill to this prestigious regular. “We make very nice electric bikes, you know…”, a nephew had slipped in on us, looking at our old bicycle, hanging not far from there.

Robert, son of Bertrand Peugeot, here in 2004, is at the head of FFP, the family's investment company, here in 2004.

But it is above all cars that always occupy the minds of family members. The Peugeots of course, but also the Citroëns, since their takeover in 1976. At the time, the Protestant dynasty still controlled the majority of Peugeot Société anonyme (PSA), this European automobile flagship. From now on, PSA is only a part of Stellantis, which also includes Fiat and Chrysler. Thus composed, the group has never been so powerful, but the Peugeot family itself only holds 7% of it. Nevertheless, the reflex remained. “Here, the president took his DS 7 Crossback…”, Carelessly noticed Marie-Hélène Peugeot-Roncoroni, Thierry’s sister, while, on a screen, at the back of the café where we had an appointment, images of Emmanuel Macron in an armored car were scrolling. Seeing a celebrity using a Peugeot is a source of pride. And sometimes a subject of dread. In January 2015, while the country was following the run of the Kouachi brothers after the attack on Charlie Hebdohalf a dozen cousins ​​exchanged horrified text messages: “They are driving a C3! »

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