Raymond Poincaré, who became premier in 1922, insisted that this new company be “entirely French” in terms of control. To that end, he turned in 1923 to an industrial magnate, Colonel Ernest Mercier. Mercier was well-qualified for the task. A Polytechnicien and a war hero who had been wounded trying to help protect the Rumanian oil fields from the advancing Germans, he was also a technocrat devoted to modernizing the French economy. He had already put together a modern electric industry in France. Now he would try to do the same for oil. The new company was to be called the Compagnie Française
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