As soon as he has a moment in front of him, Michel-Edouard Leclerc leaves his Parisian residence towards his house in Brittany. The famous boss defines himself as a sailor and has even won titles, he confided in an interview with the “Journal des Femmes”.
Michel-Edouard Leclerc, a name that all French people know! And not only because his surname is displayed large on the fronts of hundreds of hypermarkets across the country. The 73-year-old businessman is also a media figure who does not speak wooden language. For The Women’s Journalhe spoke with us about his daily life as a boss, his relationship with money and even one of his pleasures: the sea.
Although he lives in Paris with his wife, Michel-Edouard Leclerc is a pure Breton product since he was born in Landerneau, in Finistère. This is also where the family business was born. And there is no question of him turning his back on his native land. He still owns a house in the area today. “In my area, it’s the surfers, the skateboarders. I am lucky to be in an extremely stimulating world. These young people are not just stupid and mean surfers, they are also executives from Naval Group, marines, people from the agri-food industry, there are the guys from Bolloré Technologies (the group has established the Blue Solutions company in Finistère),” he told us.
If Michel-Edouard Leclerc readily admits that they have “no time for california“, this does not prevent him, like the locals, from enjoying the pleasures of the sea regularly. And this since childhood: “While others were born in Lyon and go skiing, I was born in Finistère where all the young people learn to swim very quickly. I quickly joined sailing clubs. My father, when I was 15, he didn’t want me to go to clubs or on a moped, because he was afraid of drunks and that I would get hit. But he let me go to Ireland with my friends, cross the Channel, or go to Land’s End, at the tip of England!“
Younger, Michel-Edouard Leclerc also accompanied “fishermen at night“, sometimes on trawlers, and keeps a memory of it”fascinating“Besides, he readily admits: he is in his element on the water.”I am a sailor and a seaside walker“, he says proudly. And this father of four children also talks with pleasure about his own exploits at sea. “I won Spi Dauphine and Tours de France sailing races with Corentin Douguet, for example. He’s good, we’ve been sailing together for 25 years!“, he said. A pleasure that he does not intend to stop anytime soon.
