Force of age: the great memory of the dean of BSB graduates

René Force remembers the School and the Class of 1940

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He turned 100 last November and still remembers the school he graduated from very well... 82 years ago! René Force is certainly the dean of the more than 17,000 alumni that BSB currently has, and keeps an impressive memory of his time in Rue Sambin. Stéphan Bourcieu, CEO of BSB, and Jacques Hélie, Head of the School's alumni network, recently had the great pleasure of sharing with him a moving and slightly timeless moment.

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“We offered him the photo of the class of 1940, his, and what was our surprise to see the memories instantly come back, and especially to see that René Force remembered almost all of his classmates! ”, testifies Stéphan Bourcieu, admiring. With a very particular prism: their geographical origin.

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In the names of comrades

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There is thus Jean Deschamps “whose father was mayor near Is-sur-Tille”, Paul Madon “whose parents owned the tobacco shop in Place Darcy”, Jacques Gauthier from Sens, Louis Troubat, “son of millers from Dijon who lived in Dijon who lived in Flavigny”, Pierre Mathey whose address he remembers precisely, “Rue du 23 Janvier”! And then in particular one of the 6 women in this class of about thirty young people, Marcelle Bonhomme, from Arnay-le-Duc.

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But there are also the sons of winemakers, Bernard Richard and Henri Girardin, the latter being “the major of the promotion! ”. And then Jacques Logerot, who later became director of the family company Pagot Savoie, a distributor of construction materials and home equipment. With this incredible coincidence: this classmate is none other than the grandfather of the man who came to meet René Force that day, Jacques Hélie.

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“I'm going to tell you a secret,” continues René Force: “The Business School was not popular with people like me, who had university degrees but were not traders. It was above all a business school, with the sons of traders and industrialists. There were not many people like me; my parents were at PLM (the Compagnie des Chemins de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée, one of the most important private French railway companies, nationalized in 1938 when SNCF was created).”

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The railway is also a family affair since René Force joined SNCF in 1942, where he contributed in particular to the construction of the first TGV line, built from 1974 between Paris and Lyon. In the 1980s, he was a municipal councillor in Dijon in Robert Poujade's team.

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War time

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So what was the school doing at the time? “There were all the subjects, but especially law, 7 or 8 hours a week, mainly commercial law,” recalls René Force, who also recognizes the professor in the photo “who taught financial mathematics.” “In languages, it was German,” says the man who still reads Gothic today.

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Obviously René Force's year of promotion is very particular, since he has just spent three years at ESC Dijon and the School will not be promoted again for four years: “When the Germans arrived in 1940, they closed the School and asked us if we wanted to join the German Army. I did not follow up but three went, Alsatians. One of them also lost his life a little later in a German pocket submarine...” recalls René Force.

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“After the War, I saw most of the classmates again, we went to School meetings twice a year, on Sambin Street; in fact, the School is still there.” And Stéphan Bourcieu concluded: “We have confirmed that even then, the network of graduates was a reality! BSB is definitely a big and venerable family! ”

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Photo from the class of 1940: René Force is at 2^th Row, the third from the right; Jacques Logerot is at 3^th row, the third from the left.