Félicien Cattier

Félicien Cattier (1869–1946) was a very prominent Belgian banker, financier and philanthropist. He was also professor of law at the Free University of Brussels. He was governor of the powerful trust, the Société Générale de Belgique and chairman of the Union minière du-Haut-Katanga amongst many other companies.

Félicien Cattier was born in Cuesmes on 4 March 1869. A member of the Royal Academy of Belgium, Felicien Cattier made a brilliant career in finance and banking. He was a close associate of the Belgian King Albert I, Emile Francqui, , Paul Errera, Politician Emile Vandervelde, US President Herbert Hoover and the Prime Minister and Minister of State Henri Jaspar.

He was Dean of the Faculty of Law at the Free University of Brussels from 1909 to 1911. He participated in the drafting of the colonial charter of the Belgian Congo and was a member of the Colonial Council.

Before moving towards the economic sector, under the influence of Albert Thys, Felicien railed against the Congolese human zoo during the Brussels International exhibition of 1897 and criticized the abuses of the Congo Free State, then held as the personal property of Leopold II. His book A Study of the situation in the Congo Free State (1906) was partly responsible for the formal annexation of Congo by the Belgian State in 1908. Cattier wrote:

The Congo State is not a colonizing state, hardly a state: it is a financial company [...] The colony has been administered neither in the interest of the natives nor even in the Belgian economic interests: its aim has simply been to procure a maximum of resources for the King himself.

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