Yet it gives time for reflection a night

No, it did not proposed the direction of the Point, offered a pair of sandals Gucci, Balenciaga bag, non-I was not invited to savour a château Latour in tropézienne villa of François Pinault between Jacques and Bernadette Chirac. Patricia Barbizet, the distinguished Vice-Chairperson of PPR Group (Fnac, La Redoute, Gucci Group: Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, etc.), that Fortune magazine has featured as one of 20 most powerful women of the world, did worse to coax me: she liked one of my books. Writers are too narcissistic...

I had yet come to undermine a smooth image conveyed by the media, that of businesswoman smart and beaten but cleared behind one of the most famous patterns of France, François Pinault. Well determined to hunt down the fault in waiting in the State of the art premises where a single magazine - the Point - had been laid in the evocative title: the new life of the rich. If the writers had of such offices, was I thinking, they would write a Goncourt. Down in my small couch, I felt predatory mood. But here it is, there are interviews as romantic encounters, sometimes it was love at first sight. How to resist disarming spontaneity that it opposed you, do not yield to the force of attraction of intellect RAM, fast A phenomenon! A meteorite! The Simone de Beauvoir of finance! Well there was corruption, Yes... but intellectual. And I found myself here - in vain - seeking in its blue-green eyes, the seduction attempt, cynicism, stalking the actress set since predestined it his fate - could not have become the face of Alain Resnais or the muse of Godard which his father, Philippe Dussart, produced the biggest movies With its false air of Marlène Jobert, it imagine it languorous and mutine at the a of the Cahiers du cinéma. But the light of headlamps, Patricia Barbizet preferred the Darkover atmosphere of plants: "I was interested in economic life, I feel not a soul of creator." And yet, nothing predestined this woman attractive and verveuse, from a family of intellectuals of left "strict form, open on the bottom" to become one of key figures of the business world.

A graduate of the first joint promotion of co sub Paris - "we were 25 girls on 250"-, she noticed Renault passage where she takes the financial officer of a subsidiary and encounters, at 34, the charismatic François Pinault. The breton businessman who had made fortune in the takeover of firms in difficulty and the trading of wood came to his Group on the stock exchange and was seeking a Chief Financial Officer. An appointment is made. "Everything was summarized in these ten minutes," she says. Yet, it gives time for reflection: a night. She is married to a banker - that the supports, encourages - and mother of a little girl. What inspired it "The acuity of his look and his desire to do things." Twenty years after, it still speak of him with a glow in the eyes: "it gives the tempo and I put in work." A woman from the shadows "It is rewarding to be number 2 of a man who is worth the effort." In the Office which is adjacent to his own, François Pinault replicates, as an echo: "Patricia is a white-blue diamond, it is a Pearl." In the realm of high capitalism, the torque Pinault/Barbizet is a tandem fiction leaving dreamer... There would be a film to make this meeting with Wong Kar - Waï behind the camera; a kind of In the mood for love, business version. Without the affects. The business is business... Because of the collusion between the intellectual left and the self-made-man is born an empire (PPR: 20.2 billion euros of turnover in 2008) now resumed and led by the son, François - Henri Pinault, a rating continues to climb: a physics of James Bond, graduate of HEC, married to the actress Salma Hayek... fiction devil. On their collaboration, that some predicted difficult, Patricia Barbizet plays appeasement: "When he was appointed, he asked me to stay while I was going." He is intelligent, ambitious, modern. "

54 Years, Patricia Barbizet is today CEO of financière Pinault of Artemis - personal holding company of the Pinault - President of the Supervisory Board of PPR, Director of Bouygues group. She also chairs the Committee of Auditors of TF1 and is also one of the two seats of the Committee on the remuneration of the string. It is finally in the foundation of France and Treasurer of the century, the very select club of the elite: "Before, women were transparent in dinners." Now, is it She smiles, lucid: "I have met many people that have seen me through the eyes of what I could explain to François Pinault." His relatives

the said humble, modest: "I am live as a woman of influence, not of power." I have nothing impressive. Very late, I had the feeling that could be interested in me. "A pose" She lacks confidence in her and is moderated by the doubt ", book a close."

In 2002, she took the Presidency of Christie's. In 2008, she joined the Board of Directors of Total... A unique place in a world where women are rare. Yet she remains hostile to quotas: "even if I know that in politics, it is the only way to get there." In the business world, it is rather backward to advance. The 40 quota, it makes me boil... It looks like 50, is still... Each seeks his Barbizet, pleasant is in the business community where machismo is veiled." Today, she heads a team of 50 people. Gilles Pagniez, legal Director of PPR and Patricia Barbizet collaborator for fifteen years, explains: "It is human, intelligent, courageous." It keeps calm and cool in all circumstances. It regulates conflicts by seeking compromise over passages in force. Professionally, she is very listening; It delegates, accepts, and is even the contrary opinion. "She observes that" it is never useful to be hard. I better love humour, the distance but I say things and always seeks the time to say. Of course, during the negotiations, sometimes, there are tensions but I try to never brutalize people. I saw many women express a position of weakness in being aggressive "."

Only shadow to the table: in the 1990s, Pinault entrusted the management of its US assets, the source of the legal-financial imbroglio of the Executive Life case. Sentenced for "undue enrichment", Artemis, who has always pleaded not guilty, is out with a fine. Patricia Barbizet will be prohibited to stay in the United States for three years. "I was a small tsunami, said it, and then it goes very quickly", but we feel the crack...

What future for those who had already all It includes that person successfully to the entice away both his loyalty to François Pinault is sincere. With him, she shared everything, even his enmities. Including to Bernard Arnault, the rival: "I would not work not with him for a thousand reasons." He proposed me and I said no. "At the time of the purchase of Gucci, François Pinault tells woke that it the up to four hours of the morning - a Pearl, I say unto you." Some people already see the Minister. This close to Jean-Louis Borloo and Christine Lagarde replicates in a smile: "I have not had to refuse." Others sigh: "Patricia Barbizet has been accustomed to work in a world of effective, short circuits of decisions, surrounded by sometimes perverse but always intelligent people". The policy is a compromise. Being a Minister to be a Minister in the Star Academy of Sarkozy where more person decides nothing... what interest... but it is capable... "" Nicolas Sarkozy is there is not wrong and entrusted in November 2008 the Presidency of the strategic investment fund investment Committee before declaring: "Patricia Barbizet is a young woman, head of a high-quality business."

The money She argues that this is not an engine... But when it evokes his salary, the discretion is required. At a time where traders have been dedicated to the despairing, the large salaries are low profile. The patterns have a common point with the writers: they do not like to disclose their income, the first because they earn too much, the latter because they earn nothing.

"If everything stopped here, I would do something in the general interest or about culture", she said. "Modern art, music, cinema, literature, his curiosity is insatiable, its precise knowledge:" it feels good in all cultural backgrounds, said his friend Laurent Bayle, Director of the Cité de la musique." There is it a great desire of openness and eclecticism, confirms his brother, film producer, Eric Dussart. She speaks to me of literature, inquired about what I do. "" It has a great ability to charm people, she knows enhance them, indicates a close, it is also her home, a way to convince." Dinner Sunday night in his hotel in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, dish of pasta prepared by his care, is a popular rendezvous of the Tout where guests also found various Pierre Lescure, Martin Hirsch, Eric Woerth, Caroline Bourgeois or Catherine Pégard. "I hate the inbreeding of thought, I'm always looking for diversity, confirms." My former manager at Renault advised me: "Do not hire people with whom you want to be friends!" "

I would ask him well to try his wheelchair to see the effect that it is. I would see me in a great boss. Patricia Barbizet could write a novel, it darkens and small notebooks. But I abdicates. I know me: in its place, I would have big head.