Émilien Amaury

Émilien Amaury
Emilien Amaury circa 1950
Born	(1909-03-05)5 March 1909 Étampes, France,
Died	January 2, 1977(1977-01-02) (aged 67) Chantilly
Cause of death	Horse riding accident
Resting place	St-Pierre cemetery at Chantilly.
Residence	Paris
Nationality	French
Other names	French Resistance code names Jupiter and Champin.
Education	Left school at 12
Occupation	Bicycle delivery boy (1921), Barman, Army, Office Secretary (1928), Founder of the Office de Publicité Générale (1930), Technical adviser to the Minister of Overseas France, Head of Propaganda in Vichy France (1940), Publisher (1944), Press magnate.
Known for	Croix de Guerre, French Resistance leader, Founder of Amaury Organisation
Children	Philippe, Francine

Émilien Amaury (born Étampes, France, 5 March 1909, died Chantilly 2 January 1977) was a French publishing magnate whose company now organises the Tour de France. He worked with Philippe Pétain, head of the French government in the southern half of France during the second world war but used his position to find paper and other materials for the French Resistance. His links with Jacques Goddet, the organiser of the Tour de France, led to a publishing empire that included the daily sports paper, L'Équipe. Amaury died after falling from his horse; his will led to six years of legal debate.

Emilien Amaury was born in modest circumstances in the town of Étampes. He left both his school and his family at 12. (Other sources say he left at 10) He began work as a bicycle delivery boy, worked in a bar, then joined the army in compulsory military service. On leaving the army he became at 19 secretary to Marc Sangnier, a journalist and politician, going from there in 1930 to found the OPG, the Office de Publicité Générale, which handled advertising for several Christian-Democrat newspapers. In 1937 he became technical adviser to the Minister for the Colonies, Marius Moutet.

France declared war against Germany in 1939. Amaury was conscripted into the cavalry in 1938 and was awarded the Croix de Guerre, but he was captured when Germany invaded the Ardennes in 1940. He escaped soon afterwards and returned to Paris. The government collapsed with the invasion and a new state was declared, with its headquarters at Vichy. Its leader, Philippe Pétain, put Amaury in charge of propaganda for the well-being of the family. Amaury, however, had been in contact with an early Resistant, Henri Honoré d'Estienne d'Orves, and through him had helped start the Rue de Lille Group, a Parisian cell of the growing Resistance movement in which Amaury took the code names Jupiter and Champin. He used his government position to procure paper – which was rationed – for Resistance newspapers and to supply other material. The paper he procured made it possible to print 30,000 and sometimes 100,000 copies of news sheets such as Résistance, L'Humanité and Témoignage Chrétien.