07.19.22
Gemini version available ♊︎The EPO Bubble — Part VII — A Multifaceted Man of Letters
Series parts:
- The EPO Bubble — Part I — An “Unprecedented Surge”
- The EPO Bubble — Part II — Signs of a Deflating Bubble?
- The EPO Bubble — Part III — Dividing Up the Spoils…
- The EPO Bubble — Part IV — A Cashflow Problem Looming on the Horizon?
- The EPO Bubble — Part V — Propping Up the Bubble?
- The EPO Bubble — Part VI — From Humble Examiner to CO³
- YOU ARE HERE ☞ A Multifaceted Man of Letters
In his spare time Razik Menidjel is something of a “man of letters”. He has published a number of books including poetry, drama and a novel co-authored with his brother Méki Menidjel.
Summary: The Benoît Battistelli- and António Campinos-elevated Frenchman, who insiders believe will push illegal software patents to make anther bubble, has a parallel ‘career’
A casual observer could be forgiven for assuming that Razik’s Menidjel’s written output is limited to dry-as-dust technical subject-matter, patent search and examination reports, articles about patent searching in the area of biomaterials and polymers, and scientific tracts such as his doctoral dissertation “Novel Syntheses for Precursors of Unusual Nitrogen-Heterocycles and Polyketides”.
However, if one takes the trouble to scratch below the surface a more multifaceted individual emerges.
It soon becomes clear that, in his spare time, Razik is something of a “man of letters”, an aspiring belletrist in fact.
“The book is full of extravagant and inflated assertions about the military exploits of the “Turcos”, in particular their contribution to Allied efforts during World War II.”Over the course of the last three decades, despite his busy schedule at the European Patent Office Razik has managed to churn out several volumes of poetry, along with an occasional theatre play and a novel for good measure.
As far as can be determined, his literary début was a now out-of-print volume of poetry entitled “Plein Couer” published in 1991 by the Parisian publishing house Éditions Saint-Germain-des-Prés which folded up in 1997.
His recent literary oeuvres have been distributed by Publibook, a small publishing house founded in June 2000. Publibook is located in Saint-Denis, a commune in the northern suburbs of Paris, and is reportedly one of the leaders in the French Internet publishing market.
Razik’s most recent literary undertaking is a racy criminal thriller entitled “Baby-Sitter” which he co-authored with his brother Méki in 2018. In his day job Méki is a French civil servant, a senior administrator with the Regional Health Agency of Île-de-France.
Razik’s brother and sometime literary “collaborateur”, Méki Menidjel, a French civil servant and senior administrator with the Regional Health Agency of Île-de-France.
The following promotional blurb gives a taste of what the reader can expect:
“Cindy’s scream catches the leader’s attention. His eyes meet the children’s. Cindy and Bruce rush to their room, frightened by the stranger. Julio, hiding by the door, grabs his knife and slashes the arm of the chief, who, wounded, retreats outside, cutting off the entrance to his three henchmen who accompany him. Julio violently closes the door and pushes the chest of drawers to the side in front of it before rushing towards Juliana.”
Written by two brothers who show their taste for muscular films, “Baby-Sitter” pits Julio, a man with a dark past and two children whose lives he is trying to save, against a murderous commando ready for anything… and the worst. A confrontation that hides even greater stakes, since the father of the children is none other than the assistant of a senator himself in danger.
Manipulations and blackmail, fights and chases, tensions and notes of humour…
The Menidjel brothers brilliantly arrange and choreograph these elements throughout this text that ignores dead time and hides nothing of its references. Catchy and intense, a script-tribute to action cinema.
In 2007 Razik made his first and only venture into the realms of amateur military historiography with a publication entitled “Les Tirailleurs algériens”.
“Les Tirailleurs algériens” is a bombastic tribalistic rant dedicated to the French colonial troops recruited from the Arab and Berber communities of Algeria.
This is a book dedicated to the “Algerian Skirmishers”, French colonial troops of Algerian extraction who acquired the nickname “Les Turcos” during the Crimean War.
These soldiers were regiments of indigenous infantry recruited from the Arab and Berber communities of Algeria who were used as cannon-fodder to serve French imperial interests during the 19th and 20th centuries.
The “Tirailleurs algériens”, nicknamed “Les Turcos” were regiments of indigenous infantry recruited from the Arab and Berber communities of Algeria and were used as cannon-fodder to serve French imperial interests during the 19th and 20th centuries.
The “Turcos” were deployed under French command in both World Wars and also during the interwar period to assist Spanish forces in the brutal suppression of the Abd-el-Krim insurgency between 1921 and 1926 (known as the “Rif War”). After World War II they were used during the 1950s and 1960s to prop up the remnants of France’s colonial empire in Africa (including Algeria itself) and in “Indochina” (Vietnam).
“Les Tirailleurs algériens” may be described as a 451-page tribalistic rant in which the author begins by paying his respects to family members who “died for France”.
The list starts with Bou Menidjel el Amara who died at sea on 4 November 1915 (presumably on board the military transport ship “Le Calvados” sunk by a German submarine in the vicinity of Gibraltar) and ending with Bouguerra ben Ain Bouati who died in action on 13 March 1954 at Điện Biên Phủ (Vietnam) defending the last vestiges of European imperialism in “French Indochina”.
“In the next part, our focus will shift back to EPO affairs and we shall see how the intrepid “Algerian Skirmisher” made further advances in his primary career when he replaced the “British Grenadier” Grant Philpott as Chief Operating Office in charge of ICT towards the end of 2019.”The book is full of extravagant and inflated assertions about the military exploits of the “Turcos”, in particular their contribution to Allied efforts during World War II.
Amongst other things, the author boldly claims that the losses inflicted on the Axis armies by these French colonial troops during the North African campaign were more decisive for the outcome of the war than the losses inflicted on the Wehrmacht by the Soviet Red Army on the Eastern Front.
It’s difficult to believe that the purveyor of such bombastic and jingoistic “ballyhoo” could rise to occupy a prominent position in an international organisation like the EPO. But given the levels of Francophone cronyism prevailing during the Battistelli era perhaps it’s not altogether surprising.
Before concluding this part, it seems appropriate to give a brief mention to Razik’s wife Nicola Kipper, another student of chemistry with artistic inclinations.
Nicola acquired a Ph.D. in natural substances chemistry (“Naturstoffchemie”) from the University of Göttingen in 1997 with a dissertation about the structure and synthesis of dioxolides entitled “Struktur und Biosynthese der Dioxolide: Ein neuer Abzweig des Shikimisäureweges”.
Nicola comes from Varel in Northern Germany and is more an aficionado of the visual beaux-arts rather than belles lettres. She exhibits her artworks regularly in the South-Holland region, including at the EPO’s annual Artists’ Exhibition “ArtEx”, and won second place in the “Groene Hart” Art Awards in 2015.
Nicola Kipper won second place in the “Groene Hart” Art Awards in 2015 (l.).
Relaxing on the beach at Scheveningen near Rijswijk (r.).
As we shall see in a later part of the series, when Razik and Nicola feel like escaping the windy and rainy maritime climate of Leidschendam in South-Holland, they enjoy travelling to sunnier spots, such as the island of Crete where they obtained planning permission for constructing a holiday home in 2018.
That concludes our exploration of Razik Menidjel’s parallel career as a “man of letters”.
In the next part, our focus will shift back to EPO affairs and we shall see how the intrepid “Algerian Skirmisher” made further advances in his primary career when he replaced the “British Grenadier” Grant Philpott as Chief Operating Office in charge of ICT towards the end of 2019. █
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