Merciless cost cutter Calvet rescued PSA

Although controversial because of his outspoken views and his ruthless cost cutting, Jacques Calvet is widely praised for saving France's Peugeot — and the country's car industry — from collapse. In the process, he created the highly successful PSA/Peugeot-Citroen group.

In June 1982, the automaker's controlling Peugeot family was searching desperately for a tough-minded visionary to bring the company back from near death.

Peugeot was in big trouble, largely as a result of the ill-fated acquisition of Chrysler's European operations. It lost $300 million that year, its market share was plummeting, and bankruptcy loomed.

After Calvet was hired as chairman, he slashed 58,000 jobs from a payroll of 218,000 and drastically reduced the number of production models to create economies of scale. Three years later, Peugeot was back in the black.

By 1987, Peugeot's breakeven point had fallen to 1.2 million cars a year, from 2.2 million in 1982, and sales jumped 13 percent to 1.85 million units.

Calvet did not bring any engineering or automotive experience to the job. In fact, Peugeot's savior was more likely to seek political office than run an automaker.

Calvet was born Sept. 19, 1931. He pursued degrees in law and politics. From 1957 to 1959 he did postgraduate work at the Ecole Nationale d'Administration, the traditional finishing school for France's political elite.

For the next 23 years he concentrated on politics and finance.

He was staff director for Valery Giscard d'Estaing in the early 1970s when Giscard d'Estaing, a conservative who later became president of France, was France's finance minister. Calvet later became president of the state-owned Banque Nationale de Paris, France's largest commercial bank. He, like many other politically conservative executives, was fired after the Socialists came to power in 1981.

Government's loss thus became the auto industry's gain.

Calvet, now 76, has never been afraid to speak his mind.

He lobbied successfully for the European Union import quota on Japanese cars, which took effect in 1992 and lasted until 1999. Some credit the quota with giving the European car industry time to restructure and become more competitive.

Calvet also showed his combative side to the French government. He threatened to resign to protest a proposal to provide $2 billion in state aid to rival Renault, knowing the conservative government at the time would be embarrassed if he did quit. The aid proposal quickly disappeared.

In 1997, he was succeeded by Jean-Martin Folz as chairman of PSA/Peugeot-Citroen.