Paris (AFP)
Charles-Henri Flammarion, heir to the publishing house of the same name which he led until 2003, died Monday at the age of 74, we learned from the group on Tuesday.
"The publishing world is losing one of its great emblematic figures (...) The house knows what it owes to its visionary audacity: an editorial diversity which is our strength today", declared its president Anne Pawlovitch , quoted in a press release.
Charles-Henri Flammarion was the great-grandson of Ernest, founder of this publishing house in 1876.
After having been attached to the management and general manager, in 1985 he was appointed CEO of the Ernest Flammarion bookstore, upon the death of his father Henri.
In 1996, the company became Flammarion SA, at the time of an IPO.
In 1999, it bought Casterman, the publisher of Tintin.
In 2000, he orchestrated the sale of the family business, then the fifth French publisher, controlled with his brothers Alain and Jean-Noël.
He explains that with the buyer, the Italian group Rizzoli Corriere della Sera, he found a partner capable of financing its acquisition policy.
But Rizzoli pushes him towards the exit three years later.
Charles-Flammarion says he is leaving home "with regret", and retires at 57 years old.
Under his presidency, Flammarion had become the editor of the French writer who would become the most influential in the world, Michel Houellebecq.
The latter has remained faithful to the same house since his second novel, "Elementary Particles" (1998).
The general secretary of the publishing division of Flammarion, Sophie Berlin, praised the "many successes in literature" known by Charles-Henri Flammarion, as well as "his sure taste which has accompanied the most diverse editorial adventures: great art monographs to the first books at 10 francs "(Librio, launched in 1994).
"A very great editor, elegance and bright intelligence, the spirit always alert," said on Twitter the publishing house Au diable Vauvert, which he had accompanied the creation.
"He was a true figure of a publisher, who had a deep respect for things of the mind, at the same time that he was a wise entrepreneur," one of his alumni told Livres Hebdo. employees, Gilles Haéri, who now works for a competitor, Albin Michel.
Flammarion has been owned since 2012 by the Madrigall group (Gallimard).
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