Ernest Mercier
| Ernest Mercier | |
|---|---|
| Born |
4 February 1878 Constantine, Algeria |
| Died | 11 July 1955 (aged 77) Paris, France |
| Nationality | French |
| Education | École Polytechnique |
| Occupation | Industrialist |
Ernest Mercier (1878 – 1955) was a French industrialist, director of the French Petroleum Company (CFP), the forerunner of the French petroleum conglomerate Total. He was born in 1878 in Constantine, Algeria (then a French colony) and died in 1955.
Mercier's grandfather Stanislas Mercier, a Protestant republican from Doubs, left metropolitan France and established himself in Algeria, then a French colony. His father, Ernest Mercier, Sr. (1840-1907), was a radical mayor of Constantine, Algeria, and had five children, including Ernest Mercier, Jr., his third son. After studying at the École Polytechnique, Ernest Mercier Jr. chose a career in the French Navy. He was posted to the port in Toulon, where he was responsible for modernizing the site, notably the electrical network. He completed his education at the École Supérieure d’Electricité between 1905 and 1908, during which time he married Madeleine Tassin (1881-1924), the daughter of a republican Senator. He was later noticed by Albert Petsche, and left the public sector for private electrical enterprise.
During the First World War, conscripted into the navy, he fought in the Balkans and the Dardanelles. According to Kuisel (1967, p. 5), he had a "fighting spirit". Injured while in command of Romanian troops on the Danube, he returned to Paris, where he served as the liaison of Louis Loucheur (Minister of Munitions for George Clémenceau) to Generals Ferdinand Foch and Philippe Pétain, as well as to the American troops.
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