Bernard Tapie (French pronunciation: [bɛʁnaːʁ tapi]) (born 26 January 1943 in Paris) is a French businessman, politician and occasional actor, singer, and TV host. He was Ministre de la Ville (Minister of City Affairs) in the government of Pierre Bérégovoy, a businessman specializing in recovery for bankrupted companies, among which Adidas is the most famous (he owned Adidas from 1990 to 1993); and owner of sports teams (his cycling team won the Tour de France twice and his football club the French championship 5 times in a row, and the Champions League in 1993).

On September 30, 2011 it was disclosed Tapie had agreed to buy Full Tilt Poker and its assets despite its legal troubles in the United States and the revocation of its gambling license.^[1] That deal fell through in April 2012.^[2]

Biography[link]

La Vie Claire, one of Tapie's former businesses, is a chain of health product stores. It sponsored one of the strongest cycling teams of all time called La Vie Claire. It was founded after the 1983 season when multiple Tour de France winner Bernard Hinault broke from the Renault-Elf team that also featured another Tour winner in Laurent Fignon after a falling-out with team manager, Cyrille Guimard. Following Hinault to the new team was Greg LeMond, who would go on to win three Tours himself. Both Hinault and LeMond would win Tours with the La Vie Claire team.

From 1986 to 1994, he was president of the Olympique de Marseille football club, which became Champion of France and won the Champions League. In May 1992, he was forced to resign of his function as Minister of City, by the Prime minister Pierre Bérégovoy, who thus established the misnamed "Balladur jurisprudence," according to which an indicted member of the government should resign.^[3]

Legal difficulties[link]

In 1993, the same year that Olympique de Marseille won the Champions League, he was accused of fixing the match between his club and minor club Valenciennes; the motivation seemed to be that, in this way, he could save his best players for important matches and not waste their energy. His club was stripped of its French league championship, though not of the Champions League title, and later suffered a forced relegation to the second division because of financial irregularities widely blamed on Tapie. In 1994, Tapie was put under criminal investigation for complicity of corruption and subornation of witnesses. After a high profile case against public prosecutor Éric de Montgolfier, he was sentenced in 1995 by the Court of Appeals of Douai to 2 years in prison, including 8 months non-suspended and 3 years of deprivation of his civic rights. He was incarcerated for about 6 months in 1997. He sold his boat Club Med 2 to Club Méditerranée.

Bernard Tapie was also prosecuted for tax fraud.

On 30 September 2008, a French court ended a long legal battle between Tapie and the Crédit Lyonnais bank. Crédit Lyonnais had allegedly defrauded Tapie in 1993 and 1994 when it sold Adidas on his behalf to Robert Louis-Dreyfus, apparently by arranging a larger sale with Dreyfus without Tapie's knowledge. The court awarded 405 million euros to Tapie. This decision was partially overturned on 9 October 2006 by the Court of Cassation, the main court of last resort in France.

In the 2007 presidential election, he supported Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) candidate Nicolas Sarkozy, despite having been a minister in a Socialist government, and being a member of the Radical Party of the Left (PRG). According to Le Canard enchaîné, this support was won by Sarkozy because of tax issues which he promised to resolve following his election.

Acquisitions[link]

Bernard Tapie has made his fortune acquiring companies. The first company that Tapie purchased was Leclanche Wonder - a large producer of batteries. He later sold this company to Energizer. In 1990 Tapie purchased Adidas, which cost him nearly 1.6 billion francs. He subsequently had a number of legal difficulties associated with this company that you can read above in the Legal section. The Tapie group has also tried to dabble in the online poker world when they tried to acquire Full Tilt Poker. However, they were not able to negotiate a successful deal with the Department of Justice in the United States, and the deal fell through. ^[4]

Media[link]

In 1995, Tapie turned to artistic endeavors because he was unable to pursue his previous interests: he was personally bankrupt and therefore unable to pursue business ventures, he was declared ineligible to run for political office, and he was banned from football. The first thing he turned to was film. He starred, together with Fabrice Luchini, in Claude Lelouch's 1996 movie Hommes, femmes, mode d'emploi (Men, Women: A User's Manual).

In 1998, he collaborated in a song by French artist Doc Gynéco, "C'est beau la vie."

In 2001, a documentary was made titled Who is Bernard Tapie? by American filmmaker Marina Zenovich.

Career[link]

• Manufrance
• Diguet-Denis
• Testut
• La Vie Claire (company)
• LOOK
• Terraillon
• Donnay
• Wonder
• Adidas

References[link]

• Integral arbitration decision in the Tapie's case 2008

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (February 2009)

Laurent Delahousse, born on 30 August 1969, is a French journalist.

Education[link]

He holds a master's degree in business and labour law, as well as a DEA in private sector law (the North-American equivalent of which would be an LL.M.).

Career[link]

In 1994, he began his career at RTL, Luxembourg's state-run broadcaster, as a political correspondent. In 1996, he joined LCI, TF1's all-news channel. In 1999, he joined M6 as its chief editor and presenter of the newsmagazine De quel droit? (By what right?), followed by Jour J (D-Day).

Since March 2000, he has been co-editor-in-chief and presenter of Secrets de l'actualité (News Secrets). Since 2001, he has also been a presenter for evening news specials such as the one on the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

In September 2006, he joined France 2 where he replaced Carole Gaessler as fellow newspresenter David Pujadas' anchor on the 8:00 pm CET newscast.^[1]

In January 2007, he started hosting the show Un jour / une heure ("One day / one hour", now called Un jour / un destin - "One day / one destiny"), broadcast every Sunday evening. From February to June 2007, he also presented a weekly political show, Un dimanche de campagne.

On 25 February 2007, Laurent Delahousse was chosen to host the week-end news.

Since September 2007, he has presented a weekly current affairs show called 13h15. He still hosts his own show, Un jour / un destin, the authoritative French news documentary series profiling key figures who have made a lasting impression on the public.

See also[link]

• French: Laurent Delahousse

References[link]

1. ^ http://animateurs.france2.fr/laurent-delahousse.html