Last update - 00:00 14/06/2007
Baron Guy de Rothschild, patriarch of banking empire, dies at 98
By The Associated Press
PARIS - Baron Guy de Rothschild, patriarch of the French banking empire,
has died, his family announced Thursday. He was 98.
Rothschild, who saw the family's bank taken over first during the Nazi
occupation and then by a Socialist government 40 years later, died Tuesday in Paris, his family said in an announcement in Le Figaro daily. The cause of death was not given.
Guy de Rothschild was born May 21, 1909, in Paris' upscale 8th district, or arrondissement, into the House of Rothschild, whose complex family tree included financiers of European royalty and some of France's most prominent names.
During the Nazi occupation, the collaborationist French government stripped his family of its French nationality - and its assets - because they were Jewish, according to Le Figaro. Rothschild fled to the United States and later to London, where he joined Gen. Charles de Gaulle's resistance force.
After the war, Rothschild rebuilt his family's financial empire, and went on to chair de Rothschild Freres bank from 1967 until 1979.
In 1981, the bank switched to government hands under a series of
nationalizations under Socialist President Francois Mitterrand.
Rothschild left France and briefly moved to New York, after writing an
editorial in Le Monde accusing the Socialists of falling victim to French
anti-Semitism.
Later his son David followed his father's example and began reconstructing the family banking network which in 1987 became Rothschild & Cie Bank.
Guy de Rothschild founded and presided over the United Jewish Welfare Fund, France's primary Jewish philanthropic agency from 1950 to 1982.
He and his second wife, Marie-Helene, were stars of France's elite social
scene until she died in 1990.
He is survived by sons David and Edouard among other relatives. A funeral
service was planned in Paris' main synagogue on June 21.