Transcript Translation

Audio 1

Bolloré:The firm manufactured three products which were becoming totally obsolete. The first was cigarette paper, and people in the world were beginning to smoke less, so production was starting to fall. Also, the firm manufactured carbon paper which was used for the duplication of documents, and with the arrival of the photocopying machine, production of this was decreasing too. And also the Bolloré firm manufactured missals, made out of Bible paper and with the fall in religious practice, the firm was in a complete mess, doing very badly... and so we found ourselves at the end of the 70s with a firm that was on the verge of closing down.

Bolloré: The first was the tea bag, you know the "tea-bag" which is a small product which seems uninteresting but 100 billion of them are made each year in the world, and it has to resist the pressure from a spoon and must infuse in less than 20 seconds. So it's a very technical product and the Bolloré firm knew how to make this product ... and the other one was the very thin plastic film which is to be used in condensers which are small components in your refrigerator and washing machine.

Audio 2

Bolloré:: So, definitely confidence, that is to say a shared philosophy, certain values that are shared, and also competence for the post concerned, knowing that for each post different skills are needed. So this group is made up of a mosaic of people who have, a priori, the same ideas but who have different skills.

Man 1: He's someone with strategic vision and quick at decision-making.
Man 2: He's young, dynamic, extremely brilliant.
Man 3: He's a creative genius rather than a day-to-day manager, and he's a guy who can always see two steps ahead of the others.
Man 4: I think that the main reason for his success, is first and foremost his... financial genius, combined with communication skills and... a very strong belief in ... in social matters.
Man 5: In the old days, bosses had been rather inaccessible people for those at the bottom of the pile. I think that Vincent Bolloré, on the contrary, is very approachable. He has a way of expressing himself, he knows how to get on with people.
Man 6: I think he's someone whom you don't at all want to address as 'Sir'. Umm...as soon as we see him coming, ...well there's no car with driver in a navy blue cap etc. He rents his car at the airport like any one of us and he behaves in a very simple way and that... that is very important.

Audio 3

Michel Leclerc: We wanted to show that we could sell more cheaply, not only grocery products but also leisure products, health products, cultural products ... and every time we came up against hurdles such as tariff barriers, regulation barriers, or socio-professional behaviour which prevented us from selling more cheaply and so we've had to fight.

Michel Leclerc: Michel Leclerc: First of all we have a major expansion programme. Each year, there is a need for 20 to 30 young managers to become operational in the market in one way or another in order to be able to go on opening new stores all over France. And of course we have international ambitions. We're opening Leclerc centres in Spain, in the United States and soon in the Eastern block countries - what we used to call the Eastern block countries, in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia. We're going to carry on prospecting in all the countries of the European Community. So it's a long term task, and it has marvellous potential.

Man 1: I don't know if he's defending the consumer but if you look a little bit at all the hypermarkets in the area at the moment and you make a comparison at the check-out, it's nevertheless still the cheapest.
Man 2:Bread is cheaper. Drinks are cheaper. Pasta and all that ... everything is cheaper. Really.