Mr Nice Guy

Date: 01/10/1998

CHRISTIAN Noyer is third among equals in a crop of Bretons who have glided to the top of the French economic policy establishment.

The current vice-president of the European Central Bank, who will celebrate his 48th birthday next week, went through university and military service with Economics Commissioner Yves-Thibault de Silguy and entered the famous Ecole Nationale d'Administration eight years after fellow Breton Bank of France governor Jean-Claude Trichet.

On the face of it, Noyer - a Dutch heartbeat away from taking charge of monetary policy for an economic zone worth 6 trillion ecu and with a population close to 300 million - should be top Breton dog.

The fact that he is not seen that way speaks volumes both for his unassuming personality and the shady political manoeuvrings which preceded the appointment of Dutchman Wim Duisenberg as the president of the Frankfurt-based bank.

Despite holding a series of top posts at the French treasury, a ministry famous for its scheming and back-stabbing, Noyer retains a strong ethical reputation among his colleagues; quite a boast for a man who has played snakes and ladders in the French establishment for as long as he has. Some put this down to his strong Catholicism, a belief he shares with German Bundesbank president Hans Tietmeyer.

Noyer may be a fully paid-up member of France's énarque club - the élite civil servants who effectively run the country - but those who know him say that he totally lacks the “offensive arrogance” which is the trademark of other club members.

Indeed, with charm and good looks rare among members of the global monetary policy establishment, Noyer is widely liked at the ECB.

“He is totally unaggressive in his negotiating technique,” says one former colleague from the EU's powerful monetary committee, who adds that this has often worked to Noyer's advantage. “He would often get more, precisely because he was such a nice guy, than if he had been more macho. His successor on the committee got a lot less because he was more traditionally French in that respect.”

Noyer has spent virtually all of his career since he graduated, first in law and then in administration in 1976, within the confines of the treasury, After a decade at the ministry, he tied himself to the political coat-tails of the then finance minister and later premier Edouard Balladur.

While he has periodically benefited from the rounds of musical chairs when France's top technocrats swap jobs, Noyer has also suffered significant reverses. Niceness, it would seem, has its limits in helping one up the French civil service ladder.

When he was moved from his post of treasury director to chief of staff to Finance Minister Jean Arthuis three years ago, this was regarded within the ministry as very much a sideways move designed to appease the more machiavellian Jean Lemierre, who took over as treasury director.

Once again, with his current job at the ECB, Noyer seems to have come off second best.

He was called up from unemployment after suffering another career reversal in the wake of the surprise victory of Lionel Jospin's Socialists in the 1997 legislative elections. The long and acrimonious battle waged by French President Jacques Chirac against Germany and the Netherlands to try to secure the first presidency of the ECB for his country made Noyer's current job very much a silver medal.

His lack of central banking experience and the perception that he is a political placeman has weakened his position within the bank. Comparing his role as “nominal vice-president” with that of Duisenberg's 'real' deputy, Tietmeyer, one seasoned ECB-watcher comments: “He is kept totally in the cold by the triumvirate which dominates the bank; Duisenberg, Tietmeyer and Trichet, and those others on the bank's governing council who have most respect for the tradition of German-style central banking.”

At the periodic ECB press conferences called by Duisenberg, his vice-president is relegated to a largely silent position beside the more majestic Duisenberg. And even though he was assigned the task of representing the bank on the monetary committee's successor, the economic and financial committee, Noyer's dossiers on the executive board look distinctly less exciting than those of any other colleague.

A lack of central banking experience was a point in his favour as far as the French president was concerned since Chirac was keen to underline the point that, while the Germans had won the battle to keep the ECB independent, appointments to the board were a political decision.

There is a feeling within the confines of the Eurotower that, at only 48 and with the shortest term of office of any member of the executive board, Noyer will need to stay on good terms with the Elysée Palace, given that it will not be long before he has to dig out his résumé again.

Indeed, a well-connected friend is already tipping him as a future governor of the Bank of France, assuming that Trichet really does replace Duisenberg in mid-2002, which is by no means a foregone conclusion. Noyer was, after all, the chief architect of the statute which guaranteed independence to the French central bank.

Some officials point out, however, that he may not be that unhappy with his current lot since it contrasts sharply with his previous positions in Paris which, in retrospect, carried with them uncomfortably substantial responsibilities.

Carrying cans has never been Noyer's métier. That fact was most evident in his involvement with the troubled French commercial banking sector. The crises at Crédit Lyonnais, Crédit Foncier and Groupe Nationale des Assurances never left any mud on Noyer despite his proximity to events.

The satirical French paper Le Canard Enchaîné remarked that the director of the treasury rarely attended meetings on Crédit Foncier and summed up his attitude as “C'est pas moi, c'est l'autre”.

Similarly, during the ECB confirmation hearings at the European Parliament in May, Dutch Socialist MEP Alman Metten licked his lips in anticipation of putting Noyer on the spot when he saw on his curriculum vitae a string of top official appointments seemingly associated with French banking supervision.

Noyer admirably finessed his way out of trouble by pointing out the distinction in the French system between actual supervision of banking, which is done by a separate commission, and responsibility for banking regulation and public funds.

At Crédit Lyonnais, the state-owned bank which all but collapsed after years of mismanagement and reckless lending, Noyer was the key player involved in drawing up the first 7-billion-ecu rescue plan.

The total cost to the state of saving the bank was eventually double that. “It was a great plan and it was not his responsibility that it was implemented in the way it was,” says a friend and former colleague.

A less kindly interpretation comes from a source close to the treasury. “His attitude was that it hadn't happened on his watch. The Socialists had made their bed and they should be the ones to lie in it.”

Noyer often digs his way out of the Crédit Lyonnais morass by pointing out that his treasury responsibilities were mostly on the international side, although this is becoming a less attractive line of argument given recent events.

As chairman of the Paris Club of official creditors, Noyer sanctioned the pouring of money down bigger black holes than Lyonnais. The 35 billion ecu of Russian debt which was rescheduled in the mid-Nineties might, on reflection, have been better spent propping up French banks.

BIO