A challenged boss
Pierre Louette, 60, is going through his most turbulent period since he was appointed CEO of the Les Echos-Le Parisien Group in 2018. The journalists’ companies (SDJ) of his two flagship titles fear for the independence of the writings with regard to the shareholder, Bernard Arnault. The machine has particularly seized up since the ousting of Nicolas Barré, the editorial director of Echoes, in March 2023. The SDJ of the economic daily saw there the mark of the interventionism of the boss of LVMH. A supposition that Pierre Louette refutes.
His detractors describe him as sometimes being “brittle and cold”, “overzealous” towards the French luxury billionaire, even if they praise his intelligence. Worried, the journalists of the Echoes ceased work for twenty-four hours from June 1 at the end of the afternoon, a first since 2007 and the takeover by LVMH. In the group’s other publication, the editorial staff of the Parisian To denied confidence in its leadership in April.
A well-made head
Son of a professor of literature from the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Fontenay-Saint-Cloud, Pierre Louette graduated from Sciences Po Paris in 1984 and from the National School of Administration in 1989, promotion Liberté-Egalité-Fraternité at the alongside Jean-François Copé and Nicolas Dupont-Aignan.
He worked as a magistrate at the Court of Auditors, before being encouraged by his friend Nicolas Bazire – now director of development at LVMH – to join the cabinet of Prime Minister Edouard Balladur as an audiovisual adviser (1993-1995 ). Pierre Louette then advocates the development of new communication networks and the Internet and reports on “information highways”.
A seasoned negotiator
After joining the Havas Advertising group and creating the Web communication agency ConnectWord (1996-2000), Pierre Louette joined the investment fund Europ@web, the Internet division of the Bernard Arnault group. In 2003, he became Managing Director then CEO of Agence France-Presse until 2010, from which he rectified the accounts and even made it a beneficiary. As he begins his second term, he is called by Stéphane Richard to join him at Orange and assist him as Deputy CEO.
Pierre Louette is in charge of discussions with Arcep, the Electronic Communications, Postal and Press Regulatory Authority, with the Competition Authority or other telecom companies. In 2020, he is in charge of negotiations with Google on the neighboring rights file as president of the Alliance of the general information press, which brings together national and regional daily newspapers, as well as the regional weekly press.
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