Le Point: "Augustin de Romanet: "A life for oneself is not a good life"".

Augustin de Romanet, CEO of ADP Group, at home, July 10. © Elodie Gregoire

He's not in the habit of talking about himself. His upbringing incites him to restraint, and his respect for the duty of reserve imposed on all civil servants compels him to do so. Augustin de Romanet, from an old French family ennobled by Louis XIV, whose four brothers and sisters have all embraced the religious life - his brother Mgr Antoine de Romanet is a bishop in the armies - is a great servant of the State. Director in several ministerial cabinets and at Matignon under Jean-Pierre Raffarin, Deputy Secretary General of the Élysée under Chirac, he headed the Caisse des Dépôts and remains until the end of the summer the boss of Aéroports de Paris, one of the key players in the organization of the Olympic Games. This fine, courteous man, a voracious reader and passionate about history and geopolitics, agreed to indulge in an exercise with which he is hardly familiar: talking about himself. He does so with modesty and compunction. His Catholic faith - his rock and inner compass - his successes and setbacks, life's great trials, his quest for wisdom... The inner workings of a great French boss.

Augustin de Romanet: You have to be willing to question yourself, to engage in personal research. I've always found it necessary not to rely on my colleagues, and to force myself to reflect personally when I'm asked to intervene externally. I don't really like television, so I take the opportunity to read a lot. I'm convinced that all the world's knowledge is contained in books. If you take care to read a wide range of subjects, you'll be able to get to grips with the world around you.

It's marked by the anxiety of losing it. My father was a criminal lawyer, and from a very early age he used to tell us that " clients had little sense of the value of time ". So when penniless farmers who had committed crimes spent three hours in his office, he couldn't charge them for three hours of consultation. I'm still aware of the value of time. It's the most valuable thing you can buy. As Seneca put it in On the Shortness of Life: "It is the characteristic of a wise man, of a man of faith, and of a man above human works, to allow nothing to be distracted from his time. And if his life is very long, whatever its material duration, it's because he disposed of it in its entirety. Nothing lay fallow and unused. Nothing was subordinated to others. And this stewardship, so vigilant, has recognized nothing as worthy of being bartered for its time." I think we should avoid allowing others to write checks on our own time.

I'm convinced of that. If there's one thing I think is invaluable, it's never fighting a battle without knowing what you're up against. This requires time to prepare before taking action. This leads me to appreciate Chinese strategy rather than Greek strategy, a difference so well described in François Jullien's book Conférence sur l'efficacité. The Greeks lead the battle by force, with horsemen, trumpets and drum rolls, at the risk of many deaths. The Chinese, on the other hand, waited at the top of the mountains for the enemy to doze off in the valley and for the fog to lift before launching their assault. Their battle is won before it's fought.

One of the keys to a serene life is to limit emotional swings and chase away the illusion of loss and gain. When you win, you're happy for a few moments, but you immediately want something else. When you lose, you're unhappy, but opportunities abound. Fortune means setbacks. You have to accept it, because after the setback comes fortune again...

Not at all. The responsibility for appointing the CEO of the ADP Group lies with the President of the Republic. In terms of form, and in the interests of the company, which is listed on the stock exchange, we could undoubtedly have anticipated the situation and avoided creating an "interim" situation that disorientated our partners, particularly foreign ones.

The natural divide in political life is between liberty and equality, just as it is between right and left. We thought we could replace it with an opposition between "progressivism" and nationalism. This has proved ineffective, and its implementation has baffled our compatriots. Our compatriots are violently returning to the historical divide, turning to the extremes to make themselves heard. We urgently need to restore moderation on both sides, without denying this founding diptych.

In both cases, your duty is not to harm others. In adversity, don't burden anyone with disappointment. And in success, don't humiliate anyone just because fortune has smiled on you.

Through arrogance, contempt or the use of a leonine position to win market share, influence or prestige.

" Faith is not a crutch in times of trial. Maybe it's a parachute that allows us to sublimate them. "

I'm tempted to look for a definition in the philosopher Hannah Arendt, whose political thought orients the good life towards the idea of a life concerned with the world. Life for its own sake is not a good life.

It seems to me that you can't set yourself the goal of doing so much more than three or four great things in life. This obviously requires constancy, hard work, magnanimity and humility. Magnanimity, because I think you have to have very big ambitions. And humility, because our human condition obliges us to.

A good life is not a quiet, cushy life either...

The cushy life is a life withdrawn from the world and I think it's a bad life.

It can be, of course, as long as it places retreat and prayer at the service of the salvation of the world.

As François Mitterrand used to say, you come from the land of your childhood. And I grew up in an environment marked by the Catholic faith. Then I gradually came into contact with very different worlds, and questioned everything I could.

I wouldn't claim to have a direct relationship with God. On the other hand, I believe I approach him through people who have dedicated their lives to him. Contemplating the works of those who claim to be God's is a way of gathering clues to his existence. For Pascal, by betting on the existence of God, the doubting man has nothing to lose; if God doesn't exist, all he loses is his nothingness. This ability to choose Pascal's wager is facilitated by the testimonies of all those, past and present, who live by Christ. It is made more difficult by all those who claim to live by Christ, but who are in fact counter-examples.

In itself, a religious vocation is a considerable mystery. And four mysteries are not four times as important as one. So I live it very simply, admiring the richness of the spiritual paths of my brothers and sisters, each with their own singularity.

I'm not immune to the human condition, which is to have doubts, and even to have undergone trials that have heightened these doubts. It's not necessary to undergo trials for the evil present on Earth to create questions. The problem of human freedom was my first religious questioning, at the age of reason. How can we reconcile the doctrine of Catholic theologians and philosophers, which attributes to God the foreknowledge of man's free acts, with human freedom, which would be meaningless if man were not responsible for his actions? The debate is endless. The idea of a faith that never doubts is complicated for me.

If there's one thing I loathe, it's being a tart. And when one is, as is the case here with you, questioned about the part of one's life that invites the highest feelings, one is inevitably alert to the moral imposter syndrome. I can't stand people who give lessons. And if you perceive me to be padlocked, it's because I don't want to give the slightest sense of certainty, or suggest that my ideas are necessarily superior to those of others.

I wouldn't say that. As a business leader, a father, as in your private life, it's important to have certainties once you've had your doubts. Provided that these are embodied in action, which puts them to the test by confronting them with reality. I don't believe at all in the performative word. As far as I'm concerned, life is no different from education: the only thing that counts is example and deeds.

By reading, by curiosity, by a methodical and progressive construction that allows you to try to forge, in successive layers, a conviction. For example, I recently read the master book Croire. Invitation à la foi catholique pour les femmes et les hommes du XXIe siècle, by the eminent Jesuit Bernard Sesboüé. In 500 pages, you won't find any proof of God's existence, but a collection of testimonies to the power of Christ's message. And it's this collection of testimonies that allows you to reinforce Pascal's choice of wager.

Of course you do.

It has to be said that the life of a company director, especially in the transport sector, doesn't allow for many retreats into the desert. But a few days after receiving an invitation to step down as CEO of Aéroports de Paris within an unspecified timeframe, I felt liberated from the burden of my position and allowed myself three days of complete solitude in a remote location to read and reflect.

Yes, I love good wine, good food, parties with friends, classical music and fine opera, of course. In life, the playful and festive dimension is important. But I'm convinced that life only gives you what you bring to it. The summa divisio for me among human beings is between those in whom selfishness dominates and those in whom altruism prevails.

To ask the question is to answer it. The answer is yes. It's all a question of dosage. Both feed off each other.

It's not easy. I've always made a point of being discreet. That's because, in a country like ours, secularism - which explicitly aims to fight religion and work towards the social extinction of religious denominations - often takes precedence over secularism, that salutary and essential principle of separation of Church and State. In this respect, we are a special country in the world. It's a characteristic we have to be wary of, at the risk of not respecting the opinions of others.

I don't think so. I don't think it's a crutch in times of trial. Trials are trials. Perhaps faith could be a parachute of ascent that would enable us to sublimate them.

The most banal, the one that never heals, is humiliation. The greatest, perhaps, and one I've never experienced, is the loss of a child. Another major suffering is the loss of a spouse, whether through a painful separation or death. And finally, there can be the suffering of those who realize at an advanced age that they have missed out on fulfillment.

I learned the power of gratitude. Because what got me through the ordeal was gratitude for what my wife gave me.

In religious terms, I'd say Blaise Pascal; and in political terms, Charles de Gaulle. Pascal had a perception of both the greatness and the misery of man. General de Gaulle had great theoretical ideas, but was aware of the need to take decisions that went against his assumptions. This was the case, for example, when he decided to put Algeria's self-determination to a referendum. It was a decision he had carefully thought through, and one that went against his professional environment, the army, and his social milieu. He took it after weighing up the disadvantages of the opposite decision, which was to support Algeria's attachment to France at all costs. I appreciate Pascal's and General de Gaulle's acceptance of complexity and of the fact that, as human beings, we don't always make the right decisions, but that we must commit ourselves, show courage and act from the heart.

To someone who died in 2022: Claude Alphandéry. He was a great resistance fighter, a banker and an activist for the social economy who, on the eve of his death at the age of 101, still had an uncommon charisma.

Someone who is fully aware of his imperfection.

" I wouldn't want to give the slightest sense of certainty or suggest that my ideas are superior to those of others. " Someone who is always searching for the truth, but is sure never to live it.

Read the article on www.lepoint.fr

By Jérôme Cordelier

Published July 28, 2024