Henri de Peyerimhoff

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Henri de Peyerimhoff (full name Henri Marie Joseph Hercule de Peyerimhoff de Fontenelle) was a French civil servant turned coal industry lobbyist and mining company leader. He was born on 19 September 1871 in Colmar, Alsace, and died on 21 July 1953 in Paris at age 81.

Coming from a small Alsace aristocratic family, Peyerimhoff studied philosophy and law after being rejected by École Polytechnique. He worked briefly as a lawyer before joining the Conseil d’État in 1895. He spent several years there and, in the early 1900s, worked in Algeria, where he helped prepare a major survey of colonization results and held high administrative roles. He returned to France in 1907 and left the Conseil d’État, though he kept writing about Algeria.

Through the help of family connections, Peyerimhoff became secretary general of the Central Committee of Coal Mines of France, a powerful industry lobby group. He rose through its ranks to become secretary general, vice president, and then president. He defended coal interests against electricity and steel, and he was involved in workers’ housing and social care, as well as managing recruitment of Polish workers for mines. He also wrote on coal economy and social issues.

Peyerimhoff played a significant political and economic role. He was a member of the National Economic Council (CNE) from 1925 and its vice president from 1926. He supported industrial cartels, opposed heavy state controls, and favored a cooperative, corporatist approach to the economy. He often promoted closer Franco-German economic ties and helped lead discussions for European industrial cooperation during the late 1920s. He was seen as a symbol of close ties between big business and the state.

In 1929 he helped a group purchase a large stake in the newspaper Le Temps, a move that sparked debates about media influence. By the late 1930s he had served on many boards and held high-ranking positions in several companies.

During World War II, the coal committee was dissolved in 1940, and Peyerimhoff did not play a major public role. In 1944 he urged Charles de Gaulle not to nationalize the coal mines, but the mines were nationalized after the war. In 1952 he was elected a free member of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politique.

Henri de Peyerimhoff died in Paris in 1953, leaving a legacy as a leading figure in the coal industry and a prominent voice for a business-friendly, corporatist approach to of France’s economy.