Edouard Michelin: Edouard Michelin, who has drowned on a holiday fishing trip aged 42, was one of France's youngest business leaders. For the last seven years, he had been chief executive officer of the family firm that invented radial tyres and is known throughout the world for Bibendum - its roly-poly Michelin Man - its restaurant and travel guides and for its maps.
Michelin's death is the latest tragedy in a family with a history of losing its firm's leaders young. His grandfather died in an aircraft crash and his great uncle in a car accident in the 1930s.
Michelin was groomed as the dauphin of the family empire from a young age. Born at the hub of the global conglomerate in Clermont-Ferrand in central France, he was the fifth child of six and named after his great-grandfather, who founded the company in 1889. He bore a striking resemblance to his father, François, who ran the company for more than 40 years.
He did his national service in the French navy serving on a nuclear submarine and, aged 21, in 1985 began the traditional family internship on the shop floor of the factory at Clermont-Ferrand. He tried to keep a low profile, to no avail. Even in blue overalls, the engineering graduate of the elite École Centrale de Paris was recognisable instantly.
He took over the firm from his father in 1999, aged 36, full of ideas after running Michelin's US operation in 1991 and heading one of the company's French factories from 1991 to 1999. He was the fourth consecutive Michelin family member to head the world's largest tyre manufacturer. It employs 130,000 workers globally, 30,000 in France, and last year produced 197 million tyres.
His stewardship, however, began with controversy. Michelin had just seen an 8.5 per cent fall in its profits as it battled Japan's Bridgestone and the American Goodyear company.
A few months into the job, he announced, almost in the same breath, that profits had reached record levels but that he would be cutting 7,500 jobs. The then French prime minister, socialist Lionel Jospin, launched a scathing attack and called on workers and politicians to unite in protest.
Michelin went on to earn a reputation on the shop floor as a more modern and humane leader than his austere father. He negotiated for the 35-hour week in France, which his father opposed, and modernised the company's structure.
He also supervised the return of the company to Formula One racing in 2001.
"Racing, and Formula One in particular, present a very strong potential in terms of communicating our technological leadership," he said. It was a challenge "and we love challenges". It was to end in tears.
Following the controversy at last December's US grand prix - when Michelin- equipped teams did not race - the company announced it was pulling out at the end of this season, leaving Bridgestone as the only tyre company working in F1.
"The decision," Michelin said, was "the result of the realisation that there is a profound disagreement between the sports philosophy that has been driven by Michelin and the management practices of the F1 authorities."
Michelin had presided over the company's annual shareholder meeting only two weeks ago. His warning that it would be hard for the group to achieve its financial targets for the year due to higher commodity prices sent the company's shares sliding earlier this month.
Described by colleagues as intensely private and shy, Michelin was a choral singer and practising Catholic who once said he dreamed of becoming an anonymous inspector for the Michelin restaurant guides and who told an American magazine that he did not believe in the "star-isation of CEOs".
Michelin says its other managing partner, Michel Rollier (60), a cousin, will now run the company. There were questions as to whether either of Michelin's brothers, Damien or Benoit, would join in its leadership. Another brother is a priest and one sister is a nun. He has a second sister but women have not traditionally occupied leadership posts at Michelin.
President Jacques Chirac has led tributes to Michelin for making his company "a universally recognised French industrial champion". Interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy said: "With his death, the French economy tragically loses one of its rising figures."
The wreckage of Michelin's boat was found yesterday and a judicial investigation has been launched by French authorities.
He is survived by his father, his wife and six children.
Edouard Michelin: born August 13th, 1963, died May 26th, 2006.