Bonum Certa Men Certa

Battistelli's Furious Love Affair With French Power: Part II

Alain Pompidou
Source: EPO Web site via the Internet Archive



Summary: Christine Lagarde's connections to Alain Pompidou (above), former President of the EPO, and also Benoît Battistelli, current President of the EPO

IN this series' teaser and in part one we focused on Benoît Battistelli's professional relationship with Largarde, who is known for serving foreign (mostly US and/or corporate) interests inside Europe. This echoes a lot of what we are seeing in the EPO these days and we shall cautiously proceed before getting to the 'meat' of the story. There is some background which needs to be presented.



Not a Personal Attack



In this series we are presenting just facts, which we carefully verify and check with various sources. Where there is doubt or uncertainty we will present it as such and always attribute where possible. We don't want to go ad hominem; we leave that to Battistelli himself. As a new comment put it last night, at Battistelli's EPO "Control Risks were hired to prepare the charge-sheet and the barristers were hired to plead the case" while another person correctly noted that “At the European Patent Office, you do not get a working contract.” It's no man's land. It's effectively operating outside the law and there is no genuine due process.

"There is some background which needs to be presented."The EPO does not want the public to think that it has legitimate critics. It defames the critics. There are only ‘armed’ ‘Nazi’ ‘Mafia’ ‘snipers’ exposing EPO abuses, or so we're supposed to think. Last year the EPO personally attacked at least 2 critics (staff representatives), possibly defaming them in the process. This year it has done so to more than 2 people, so it is only getting worse. The EPO will sooner or later try to discredit reporters as well (probably pile more ‘dirt’ on them), just as it does to everyone ‘daring’ to expose the EPO. That's just the modus operandi du jour.

Today we're going to drop the "Rothschild" word/name, which often gets wrongly associated with all sorts of conspiracy theories. What we actually allude to here is an affluent French family whose relevance to the story will become apparent in future parts of this series.

Lagarde and Baroness Philippine de Rothschild



The following toasting photo shows Largarde in her then role as French Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries toasting with Baroness Philippine de Rothschild at Vinexpo, the world's biggest wine fair, 18 June 2007 in Bordeaux, southwestern France.

"The EPO does not want the public to think that it has legitimate critics."Baroness Philippine de Rothschild was the owner of the French winery Chateau Mouton Rothschild.

Here she is shown delivering a speech during the dinner of Conseil des Grand Crus Classes of 1855 hosted by Chateau Mouton Rothschild on June 16, 2013 in Pauillac, near Bordeaux, France.

"We note in passing that her adopted son Alain Pompidou was a former President of the EPO."As might be expected, Baroness de Rothschild was well-connected in French high society. Here you can see her with Claude Pompidou, the widow of former French President Georges Pompidou. More information about Claude Pompidou can be found in Wikipedia.

We note in passing that her adopted son Alain Pompidou was a former President of the EPO. Seeing some circles yet?

Baroness de Rothschild was closely associated with a charity operated by Madame Pompidou ("Fondation Claude Pompidou") which issued a statement of appreciation following her death in 2014 (in French).

"It's not about what you know but who you know and who likes you."Needless to say, as the owner of Chateau Mouton Rothschild, Baroness de Rothschild was also a significant player in the French wine industry. This will be the 'meat' of our story, as we shall come to at a later stage because it involves Battistelli.

Here's a local copy of the speech photo from 2013 without the Getty Images watermark (arguably qualifies as fair use, under "criticism" and limited access to the venue). Part III will delve deeper into the connection of all this not just to Alain Pompidou, former President of the EPO, but also Battistelli, current President of the EPO. It sure looks plausible that in order to become President at the EPO you need to be well-connected. It's not about what you know but who you know and who likes you. Recall our series "EPO: It's Like a Family Business" (part one, part two, part three and part four).

Speech



Recent Techrights' Posts

Parties and Milestones Again
we've begun putting up about 40 balloons
Microsoft is Disloyal Towards Its Most Loyal Employees
Against its most faithful enablers
 
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part II: The Person Who Planted Paid-for Fake News for the European Patent Office (EPO) is a Cocaine User, Friend of António Campinos, Now on Record as Having Been Arrested
Background: High-level manager at the European Patent Office caught in public with cocaine, arrested
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 27, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 27, 2025
Google News Drowning in Slop (and Slopfarms That Hijack About Half the Results)
Google News seems to be drowning in this stuff
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: "How to Maximize Your Positive Impact" and ASCII Art and Artist Attribution
Links for the day
PETA and Activism
Being staff or volunteer in PETA isn't easy
Big Blue, Huge Debt
debt will soar again
Links 27/10/2025: Mass Surveillance Sold as "AI", People Reluctant to Lose Physical Media
Links for the day
Techrights' 19th Anniversary: Bronze
Time to go back to preparing for this anniversary
Our Latest European Patent Office (EPO) Series Will Last Several Weeks, Will Ask the EPO Management and the European Union (EU) Very Difficult Questions
If nobody loses a job (or jobs) over this, then the EU basically became no better than Colombia or Nicaragua
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, Brian Fagioli, and Google News
We focus on stories that are fake or LLM slop that disguises itself as "news" about Linux
Links 27/10/2025: Wikipedia Vandalism, Bruce Perens Opens up on Childhood
Links for the day
This Site Could Not be Done by LLMs Even If It Wanted to (Because It's Not a Parrot of What Other Sites Say)
LLMs have no knowledge or deep understanding
19 Years, No Censorship
No factual information is ever going to be removed, more so if it is in the public interest
We Are Not a Conventional Site, That's Why They Hate (or Love) Us
Throughout the week this week we'll be focusing on the EPO
Following the Line of Cocaine All the Way to the Top
Even a million denials and spin-doctoring won't distract from the core issue
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part I: António Campinos Brought Corruption and Nepotism to the EPO, Then Came the Cocaine
High-level manager at the European Patent Office (EPO) caught in public with cocaine, the Office has some answering to do
Purchasing/Possessing Computers Isn't the Same as Controlling Computers
Let's strive to put computers back under the control of their users, no matter who purchased these (usually the users)
Gemini Links 27/10/2025: Alhena 5.4.3 and Fixing Bash
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 26, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 26, 2025
Thankfully We've Made Copies of More Interesting Data From statCounter
If statCounter (the Web site or the 'webapp') vanished overnight, we'd still have something left of it
More Silent Layoffs at IBM/Red Hat
when the media counts such layoffs or presents tallies the numbers are very incomplete
Links 26/10/2025: Microsoft Spies on Gamers, Open Transport Community Conference
Links for the day
Links 26/10/2025: LLM Slop / Plagiarism Programs Continue to Disappoint, CISA Layoffs Threaten Systems
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/10/2025: Gemsync and Joining the Small Web
Links for the day
India.com a Click-baiting, SEO-Spamming, Slopfarming Heap
They do this almost every day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 25, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, October 25, 2025
Without XBox Consoles, XBox is No More, It's Just a Brand (More Rumours of Microsoft Ending XBox, Then Laying Off Lots of Staff)
All signs indicate that Microsoft wants to "exit" the XBox business (not brand), but it does not want to publicly admit this as it would alarm staff and shareholders