{"id":145113,"date":"2018-06-22T22:09:15","date_gmt":"2018-06-22T22:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/baron-edouard-jean-empain-who-lost-finger-to-kidnappers-dies\/"},"modified":"2018-06-22T22:09:15","modified_gmt":"2018-06-22T22:09:15","slug":"baron-edouard-jean-empain-who-lost-finger-to-kidnappers-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/baron-edouard-jean-empain-who-lost-finger-to-kidnappers-dies\/","title":{"rendered":"Baron Edouard-Jean Empain who lost finger to kidnappers dies"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"BarnImage copyright AFP
Image caption Baron Empain led one of France's top industrial groups in the 1970s <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A French-Belgian industrialist who was the victim of one of France's most notorious kidnappings has died aged 80. <\/p>\n

In 1978 Baron Edouard-Jean Empain, then head of the Schneider Group, was seized at gunpoint from his chauffeur-driven car near his home in Paris.<\/p>\n

He was held for 63 days, chained in darkness, starved, and beaten.<\/p>\n

The case grabbed attention when the kidnappers cut off his fingertip and threatened further mutilation unless his family paid a huge ransom.<\/p>\n

Baron Empain was 40 at the time, and one of France's leading captains of industry. His Schneider group comprised some 300 companies and employed 150,000 people worldwide.<\/p>\n

He was the grandson of Edouard Empain, who had been ennobled by the King of the Belgians after building an industrial empire in the late 19th Century.<\/p>\n

Botched ambush<\/h2>\n

In January 1978 armed men stopped his car on Avenue Foch, in Paris' wealthy 16th arrondissement. The chauffeur was bundled into a van - and quickly released- while kidnappers took the baron away in his car.<\/p>\n

There was initial speculation that he had been targeted by one of the left-wing militant groups that were seizing prominent industrialists across Europe at the time. <\/p>\n

But it quickly emerged that the abductors' motive was old-fashioned extortion. They contacted the family demanding 80m francs - the equivalent of about 50m euros (\u00a345m) in today's money.<\/p>\n

The ransom note came with a packet containing the baron's left little finger.<\/p>\n

As kidnappings - both criminal and political - were becoming increasingly frequent, police decided to set an example, and vetoed plans by the family to pay up. <\/p>\n

Instead, they lured the kidnappers to a rendezvous point. But the ambush was botched and the ensuing shootout left two officers wounded.<\/p>\n

One the abductors was killed and another was captured, but the baron was still chained up in a hideaway in a Paris suburb.<\/p>\n

Image copyright AFP
Image caption The baron's Peugeot 604 was found in an underground car par in western Paris <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

'Broken man'<\/h2>\n

The detained kidnapper, Alain Caillol, convinced his accomplices to release their captive. Two days later the baron was found wandering the streets south of Paris, disorientated and emaciated - with a 10-franc note his captors had given him to get home. <\/p>\n

Caillol later said they had experienced "Stockholm syndrome in reverse" - where the kidnappers end up sympathising with their victim.<\/p>\n

"He dominated us morally. Everyone saw in him the dream of what he wanted to be: handsome, rich, powerful, intelligent," Caillol told APF news agency in 2012.<\/p>\n

After serving his jail sentence, Caillol sought out Empain to ask for forgiveness. He was not the only one to feel sorry over the baron's ordeal.<\/p>\n

During the investigation, police had to delve into his private life to look for possible clues. As a result, his infidelities and gambling sprees became widely known. Public sympathy for him was limited and his wife divorced him shortly after his release. <\/p>\n

Empain was left bitter, feeling people had turned against him. He eventually withdrew from business life.<\/p>\n

"He was a completely broken man," one of the investigators recently told France Info radio.<\/p>\n

"It was terrible that he suffered so much for a few peccadilloes, while he himself showed impeccable virtue. He forgave his kidnappers... Even though he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, I felt he was hard-done by."<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image copyright AFPImage caption Baron Empain led one of France's top industrial groups in the 1970s A French-Belgian industrialist who was the victim of one of France's most notorious kidnappings<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":145114,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}