Who was J.F. Dupleix ? He was the son of René François Dupleix, CEO of the Compagnie des Indes Orientales, who had trained his son to become a businessman and who sent him to India first in 1715, aged 18.

What was the CFIO – Compagnie Française des Indes Orientales ? Probably the richest of all the French Trading Compagnies built up by JB. Colbert (1619-1683), brilliant Finance Minister of the Sun king (1665-1683) about 40 years earlier

Dupleix had built the first organization of a Franco-Indian Army, called the Cipayes, with French officers and Indian soldiers, with such French officers reputedly not looking down to the population but having a spirit to be listening to their soldiers, families and to all local authorities involved. Such an organisation was so successful that it got copied by the Brits some 15 years later.

Dupleix had also built brilliant cities with famous French architects in Tamil Nadu, most famous among them were Puducherry and Madras (now called Chennaï), which was so famous in France in the 18th century that ‘Madras tissues’ were very common among the French aristocracy and well off families. Dupleix had also built a number of forts which were holding French positions in more than 50 regional cities of Southern India and had also massively developped trade with the French colonies of ‘Ile de France’ (which became successful ‘Mauritius’) and ‘Ile de Bourbon’ (which became successfull ‘Ile de la Réunion = Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean).

Following Colbert’s (The Sun King Finance & PM for 18 years) development of ‘Compagnie des Indes’ some 40 years earlier, the French colonies of India were developping at a fast pace under Dupleix, with Trade reaching 9 figures in textile, fruit and building industries.

So much so that such a brilliant success with French officers commonly speaking Hindi or Portuguese (Goa) strongly annoyed the British businessmen in the North of India (Calcutta = Kolkata) who requested British spies to look into Dupleix successes and influence the French king, then Louis the 15th in Versailles. This came at a time where the French king, not as brilliant as his great grandfather (The Sun king), was highly distracted by young women in Versailles (parc aux biches) and by his official mistress, Madame de Pompadour, and had not the slightest idea of what really boiled up under the highly competent Governor Dupleix. He had left many of his key competences to amateur administrators or ministers, including Machault.

The results were that a bunch of skillful British spies and diplomats at the French Court ended up in buzzing in the wrong ears that Governor Dupleix had taken some money back from the king, which was absolutely untrue.

With such biased information, the French king Louis the 15th was wrongly advised by Machault to have Dupleix back to France and to be judged (He defended himself courageously but it took him until the end of his life to win back, while he was ruined in the process having sold his French riches to invest them in India) and wrongly replaced by an incompetent aristocrat, who was not listening to the experienced French officers being there for 5 to 25 years. This all resulted in such brilliant officers losing their motivation and for some fleeing away from such an incompetent and abusive new manager.

Of Course, the British army took advantage of this and attacked the French forts, one by one, against a far less motivated set of French officers. Plus the defeat of Montcalm in Montreal and the Treaty of Paris were terribly mismanaged by the French king who had the worse ever results in deals and diplomacy in the last 3 centuries for France. The Brits forced the French king to reduce the French presence in India to 5 Business Counters, of which Puducherry, Mahé and Chandernagor, where you still have in this 21st century about 1m French speakers, some of them living in France, with brilliant doctors, engineers, architects, scientists and teachers among others.

So yes, Governor Dupleix did an absolute brilliant work for the 25 years he spent in India where he had promised to finish his life.

And yes, Dupleix would have developped the Southern half of India further up with his brilliant team of Officers and Administrators, had he been supported by French public clerks of those times, who were alas far too often poorly working aristocrats and not higly motivated and competent businessmen. Dupleix had gathered all such skills : Overall and Long Term View, Organization skills, turned towards fast business development, speaking 3 Indian languages while his wife spoke at least 15 of them and highly empathetic both to his teams and officers and to the Indian diverse populations.

The lessons of all this are triple

1/ There is no possible generalization among managers or administrators or generals, whichever their origin (French or British) may be. They are all very different. Some may be geniuses (like Dupleix). Some may be boring and uncompetent (like the aristocrat who replaced him in Puducherry)

2/ For 155 years (since 1870 with Napoleon the 3rd end of 2nd French Empire and 1683, year where brilliant Finance Minister JB. Colbert (1619–1683) died, with his long term views), France has often lacked long term views for too many politicians looking short-term at their next reelection, instead of being obsessed by their duly work = France blooming (La Grandeur de la France)

3/ Nowadays there are some 350 millions of French speakers in the world, many of them being skillful entrepreneurs from former French colonies. Their strenghts are : Highly adaptable, world view, highly empathetic and listening to local partners and teams, and often polyglot.

Author : François P. VALLET, Conférencier, Conseil auprès des PME, groupes, start-ups, et auprès de dirigeants et collectivités.

Cet article Would India be better off if France had followed up its colonization under CFIO and Dupleix ? est apparu en premier sur Actualités en France : Start-ups, PME, Arts, Histoire.

The recent crisis with the Coronavirus (over 450,000 European victims so far) has shown a number of points

• European scientists are brilliant but they do find more and reach a lot more together, when working in European teams.

• European engineers and technicians have brilliantly succeeded in building the Concorde planes, the AIRBUS family of planes and TGV trains covering over 33,000 kilometers of European train routes at High Speed, such as 200 to 390 kmph, as well as a growing number of innovative start-ups in many European countries, with deployment Europa wide or at least in half a dozen major markets within years.

• European doctors and medical care systems are NOT working closely enough together and have therefore performed very differently since last pandemic occurred from 27th December 2019, though.. China was still not telling the world until much too late…

• European governments and Länder (Germany) have chosen very different solutions and routes to fight the virus, with some of the best performing EU members helping their neighbours (such as France, who is warmly thanking Germany, Austria and Luxembourg for their support) better welcome and care for the worse hit regions and hospitals.

• European researchers are currently active in testing some 9 different vaccines on animals or Humans since March 14th, 2020, but are mostly doing so on national bases, even if many EU doctors are crossing boarders and are also welcoming non-EU doctors in their hospitals. And such doctors and nurses do contribute a lot to the European Health services.

• European citizen initiatives, small companies, local doctors, large companies and NGOs or volunteers have often been far more reactive, outperforming largely national politicians or governments and have succeeded in many brilliant developments and outcomes, such as the recent mask solutions and ventilators’ solutions based on existing tools reinvented (such as Decathlon diving materials reused for the Hospitals) or improved by various groups in Italy, France, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Scotland, Switzerland, Czechia, Greece, Lithuania, Austria and so on.

Now EUROPE, mother of the modern times democracies such as in Ancient Greece cities of Sparta and Athens, has a number of obvious DUTIES, to get out of 2020 pandemic and Coronavirus crisis and economic downturn

• TEST massively all its 270m working forces to help them get back to work safely and let at least growing numbers of 75m then 150m then 225m of them get back to open work and be able to travel all through Europe safely, without transmitting the virus.

• TEST massively all 7m citizens who are currently Residents in nursing Homes to save them from the virus and isolate and cure the infected ones.

• impose MASKS and gloves in all public transportation all through Europe.

• Generalize the successful Hydroxychloroquine + Azistromycine curing protocol (at a very low cost) tested with success on 3,000 patients by world-famous infectiologist Didier Raoult and his teams from IMU Marseille, as long as the vaccines will not be available (Senegal doctors who are following this protocol are having one of the lowest if not the lowest number of victims per million inhabitants in Africa)

• favor successful European vaccines so as to let them become available shortly in millions, with the support of the European Union Council as with the backing of European Central Bank (ECB)

• Create ‘vaccinated or immune’ European passports and Health cards to permit European citizens to travel and work more broadly within Europe and abroad, when external countries will allow it 

• get all the kids and students back to SCHOOLS and Universities or ‘Grandes Écoles’ by mid-June or the end of June, postponing vacations for one month or 6 weeks

• re-open all shops and companies, starting with the smallest ones with the simple rules already acted in many countries, with again masks made compulsory everywhere

• re-open all open-air markets, in case some would have been closed, as in France

• reopen train lines, plane links with a growing set of schedules, respecting the above rules of reusable masks for the Earth, reusable gloves, gels, respect of 2m distances..

• generalize frontal thermometers in all public places as well as thermal cameras in all stations, airports, harbours, boarders, public offices, shopping malls, and so on

• generalize software tracking tools all over Europe, to find out quickly all those who might have been infected while meeting infected individuals, to isolate and cure

• reopen tourism within Europe with strict rules as mentioned above and groups limited to 50 to 150 with growing air ventilation and air cleaning systems

• Grow massively SOLIDARITY between European countries to help save millions of SOHOs and small and medium-size companies and their employees’ jobs.

• reopen open-air theatres, cinemas, festivals, with same above measures of compulsory masks & gloves, gel distributors in all entrance halls, with a growing number of attendees, starting with 20, 50, 100, 250, 500, and so on… And re-open closed theaters & cinemas later on, with public seated with compulsory masks and gloves and seated with respect of distances…

• reopen beaches with compulsory masks for all and respect of 2-meter distances, except when swimming

• Support African Health systems to help them build hospitals, decrease public corruption by 90%, and improve national Health security systems in the 54 African countries with local dispensaries created and supported by the EU at minimal cost. Double number of African doctors trained. Better small efficient Units than big expensive ones.

• Accelerate CO2 reductions everywhere in Europe with Paris Agreement Objectives to be exceeded and CO2 emissions to be reduced 60% by 2030 and 90% by 2040 

• Grow Urban Forests and Agroforestry solutions by +100% by 2,028 and +300% by 2,040, planting millions of Trees and plants around buildings, streets, houses and housing and shopping areas.

• Generalize electric and Hydrogen-powered trucks and buses and forbid oil-powered trucks & buses by 2,035.

• Stop Coal mines and coal powered thermal stations by 2,025. Treble solar, wind and biomass energy outputs. Grow by +50% Hydro-electricity and Marine electricity solutions

• Forbid 100% of wild-life animal trade, such as elephant, rhinoceros, pangolin, bats and so on in Europe and lobbying for a worldwide ban on such damaging trades, both for biodiversity dangers and for biological dangers of viruses migrating from animals to Humans, as seen in the current worldwide pandemic, started in world number 1 importing country in wild life and animals = China.

This article is opened to your improvement ideas and will be reviewed at least once a semester until the end of 2021.

François P. VALLET, ESCP EUROPE Business Alumni, trained in Paris, Oxford and Berlin, with students originating from 27 European countries.

Cet article Let’s imagine a stronger EUROPE est apparu en premier sur Actualités en France : Start-ups, PME, Arts, Histoire.