Their black and white portraits have adorned the halls of Accor hotels for decades, today the 6th largest hotel group in the world with 5,400 establishments under the Novotel, Ibis, Sofitel, Mercure or Pullman brands in 110 countries.

"All the big projects only saw the light of day because we agreed," he said of his partner Paul Dubrule, whom he will use as you all his life.

"He was Bac +10, Dubrule was Bac -2. He was the man of numbers, Paul the one of strategy. They had an enormous complementarity, a very great complicity, an extraordinary respect... and legendary shouting matches, but always in private,” reports biographer Henry Lang.

Small while Paul Dubrule is tall, which is a source of tension between them, he will buy a Bentley because, he will say, he can "enter standing" in it.

Born on February 9, 1932 in Lyon, Gérard Pélisson left, with an engineering degree from the Ecole Centrale in his pocket, for the United States where his wife's "odd jobs" paid for his studies at the famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) before that IBM does not hire him.

Back in France, he met Paul Dubrule, like him an admirer of the American "success story" Holiday Inn, with standardized rooms on the outskirts of towns, when in France the hotel business was not yet an industry.

In three years, they raised 3 million francs and opened a first Novotel near Lille in 1967, on a former beet field near the northern motorway.

"Loyalty to employees"

Immediate success.

Two other Novotels sprang up in two years, in Colmar and Marseille, and in 1974, Bordeaux welcomed the first Ibis, the embryo of the first network of budget hotels in France and then in Europe.

In the 1970s, the SIEH (Hotel Investment and Operating Company) invested in Africa, the Middle East, South and North America, and became Accor in 1983.

Former Accor ambassador for the Middle East, Abdou Belgat remembers that Gérard Pélisson wanted to "conquer holy cities" like Mecca, to establish himself in the region where the group now operates 133 hotels, in Dubai or Abu Dhabi.

Lover of good words, follower of outspokenness, he said he was "favorable to lifelong employment, except for idiots", reports his co-biographer Pierre-Michel Kaufmann.

Visiting one of his hotels, he goes through the accounts and prefers "ask the receptionist why she's sulking" rather than being interested in the "director's salamalecs", recalls Mr. Belgat.

In negotiations, he can "lie like a tooth-puller, but always for the good of Accor", and "never goes back on a + Yes +", says Mr. Lang.

"Pillar, reference" of the hotel industry in France, the Pélisson-Dubrule duo had "loyalty to its employees" as opposed to "management by the pure financiers who have imposed themselves" on the sector, believes Didier Arino, of the specialist firm Protourisme.

With takeovers -Courtepaille, Mercure, Sofitel...- the duo breaks the codes, innovates, inventing "the 99-franc room" of the Formula 1 cars, and rises among the world leaders in the sector.

In 1990, they even wanted to create the "McDonald's of the hotel industry" by opening 150 establishments a year.

Fine gastronome, Gérard Pélisson had "his table, number 5, reserved for life at the Pré Catelan", says the three-starred chef Frédéric Anton, happy with his "privileged relationship" with this "epicurean", member of the "Club des cent" , who loved "coming into the kitchen, giving his opinion on a dish".

From 1994, all-out acquisitions weighed on Accor's accounts: the tandem gave up operational management in 1997 but retained co-chairmanship of the supervisory board until 2005.

The following year, Gérard imposes his nephew Gilles Pélisson at the head of the group, after a battle of shareholders.

What did he teach him?

"Everything", answers the nephew, former CEO of TF1, who created the G&G Pélisson Foundation with him.

"An incredible faith in life, the importance given to employees, to the human adventure, the weight given to the big operational bosses in decision-making, business dynamics, risk-taking... and the idea that managers must be accessible", explains Gilles Pélisson to AFP.

"These are principles that I still apply."

In 1998, Gérard Pélisson also took over with his friend Paul Bocuse the School of Culinary Arts and Hospitality in Ecully, renamed Institut Paul Bocuse.

© 2023 AFP